Rick Lagina Sold The Latest Treasure And Payed The Crew MILLIONS
Rick Lagina Sold The Latest Treasure And Payed The Crew MILLIONS
And as a team, we all think it’s worth digging.
And we’re going to dig it. And be prepared to be surprised. There’s a shiny gold thing down there. Six people have lost their lives trying to do what you may be able to do this afternoon so far. And hopefully going to find that shiny gold thing that David saw on the monitor.
Here we have an object, a hard object to go locate and retrieve. I mean, that’s what we’re here for. The Oak Island team’s recent treasure find is so substantial that the Lagina brothers could retire tomorrow if they chose to. Their discovery of ancient artifacts and hidden riches promises to reveal items lost for centuries.
However, one question remains: How much do the crew members earn from The Curse of Oak Island? Are Rick and Marty Lagina truly making millions after 11 years of relentless searching and digging?
Join us as we dig into the details of how two brothers became billionaires through gold mining and their incredible journey on Oak Island, turning a dream into a hit TV show.
Oak Island has long been rumored to have hidden wealth, supposedly left there by a pirate named Captain Kidd more than two centuries ago. This idea has attracted many people to the island, hoping to uncover valuable treasures buried beneath its surface.
The Lagina brothers, Marty and Rick, first learned about Oak Island as children in 1965 after reading an article in Reader’s Digest. This discovery sparked a lifelong passion for treasure hunting, which they have pursued despite following different career paths.
Marty, the younger brother, is more grounded and realistic. He trained as an engineer and later entered the legal profession, eventually founding an energy company called Heritage Sustainable Energy, where he is the CEO. He also established Mari Vineyards, a winery in Michigan, contributing to his diverse sources of income.
Rick, on the other hand, seems more driven by the romance of the treasure hunt. In 2006, the brothers took a significant step by acquiring the rights to explore Oak Island — a dream they had nurtured since childhood. They started their search funded by loans and investments from others who believed in their quest.
This adventure turned into the basis for a television show called The Curse of Oak Island, which has aired for 11 seasons. The show has been financially rewarding for the brothers, who reportedly earn about $100,000 for each episode. This amount increases with reruns. Thanks to their roles as executive producers, over 166 episodes, they have earned over $16 million.
The financial success of the show suggests that their true treasure has been found not in the soil of Oak Island, but through the television series documenting their search.
Apart from the show, Marty’s business ventures such as his energy company and vineyard provide him with additional financial stability. The vineyard allows customers to purchase wine directly from his website, adding to his income.
Despite doubts about finding treasure on Oak Island, Marty’s commitment to the search continues, supported by his financial and business acumen. As the brothers continue their exploration, they not only dive deeper into the island, but also into the profitable realm of entertainment.
Their story is not just about looking for old pirate treasure. It’s also about how they’ve managed to turn their childhood fascination into a successful media and business enterprise.
Their journey raises questions about their motivations — whether they are driven more by the potential of finding treasure or by the definite gains of their media presence.
The Lagina brothers, Marty and Rick, have turned their childhood interest in Oak Island into a vast business empire that goes well beyond simple treasure searching. They earn at least $5,000 for each public speaking event they attend, leveraging their fame from their treasure-hunting adventures.
Their business extends into merchandise with a range of products such as shirts, hats, and keychains sold through the History Channel website. They have also ventured into publishing with several well-received books, adding to their income streams.
Additionally, Oak Island is the site of a popular tour operation, Salty Dog Sea Tours, which is so in demand that it’s fully booked until April. The combination of these ventures along with undisclosed sources of income suggests that Marty’s net worth could be somewhere between $90 to $100 million.
This figure underscores the substantial financial success they’ve achieved — far removed from the initial dreams of uncovering hidden treasures.
Craig Tester, Marty’s longtime friend and business partner, plays a crucial role in their operations. His expertise in earth drilling and scanning has been crucial for exploring the island effectively. He co-founded Terra Energy with Marty and likely profited significantly from its sale.
Now serving as the vice president of Heritage Sustainable Energy, his annual salary is around $250,000. With a solid educational background in mechanical engineering from Michigan Technological University, Craig’s technical skills are invaluable to their business operations, which include managing turbine production.
His estimated net worth, much like Marty’s, ranges from $80 to $90 million — highlighting his financial success across various business endeavors, including Terra Energy, Mari Vineyards, and Oak Island Tours.
Alex Lagina, son of Marty and nephew of Rick, also plays a significant role in this family business empire. Following in the footsteps of his father and his father’s close friend, he graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan.
Alex is deeply involved in his father’s ventures which span the energy and wine sectors, and he also holds significant real estate assets. His involvement in the show has not only boosted his popularity but also his financial standing — with appearances in 95 episodes of The Curse of Oak Island, 10 episodes of The Curse of Civil War Gold, and one episode of Beyond Oak Island.
Considering his earnings from these shows along with his real estate investments, his estimated net worth is about $50 million.
Jack Begley, deeply involved with the Oak Island treasure hunt, exemplifies the common blend of personal relationships and business ventures among the show’s crew.
As Craig Tester’s stepson and part of the Michigan-based team, Jack is known for his willingness to engage in the physically demanding tasks required on the island. He’s often seen working hard on the digs, which proves his importance to the team. Although he does not shy away from the less glamorous aspects of treasure hunting, his dedication is well recognized among his peers, and he has formed a strong bond with Gary Drayton, a fellow crew member skilled in metal detection.
Together, they explore the island, searching for valuable items buried underground. With Oak Island still calling, Jack Begley steps in, showing his own important part in the treasure hunt — the team working hard behind the scenes.
Jack’s involvement in over 100 episodes of The Curse of Oak Island and his role as a producer on the show suggest that he is financially successful, with a net worth estimated at $10 million.
Despite this, Jack is frequently perceived as playing a secondary role compared to the main figures on the show, suggesting a disparity in recognition and perhaps compensation.
Outside the show, Jack is a drone pilot and runs his own business, Remote Energy Solutions. This venture, which generates significant income, showcases Jack’s diverse skills and business acumen beyond the treasure hunt.
Gary Drayton, who hails from England, has made himself indispensable to the Oak Island team with his self-taught metal detecting skills. His ability to uncover significant finds on the island has been critical on numerous occasions.
His discoveries, which include items linked to historical narratives and valuable artifacts like semi-precious stones and ancient coins, add substantial value to the team’s efforts.
His fame on the show The Curse of Oak Island and his participation in Beyond Oak Island have made him a well-known figure in the treasure hunting community.
Despite being a supporting character, Gary’s personal treasure finds and his contributions to the show have helped him amass a net worth of $15 million.
Gary’s role extends beyond simple treasure hunting. He is also an educator and promoter of metal detecting, sharing his knowledge through books and public appearances. His unique phrases and enthusiastic personality make him a memorable part of the show, engaging viewers and adding a layer of entertainment to the serious business of treasure hunting.
His financial success, stemming from both his on-screen roles and off-screen ventures, illustrates the potential for substantial earnings in the niche field of treasure hunting.
While working for the United States Postal Service in Michigan, he lived a rather ordinary life grounded in a traditional way of thinking. His daily routine was shaped by an old-fashioned set of values focused on honor and persistence.
These values fueled his ongoing passion for finding the long-sought treasures on Oak Island. Despite earning a decent annual salary ranging from $62,000 to $122,000 as a postal worker, this amount was not enough to fully support his ambitions of a treasure hunt.
Nonetheless, his participation in a television show about treasure hunting significantly increased his wealth, bringing his estimated net worth to around $20 million.
The idea of finding treasure on an island has always been enough to excite anyone. The island has been at the center of countless tales of undiscovered riches waiting just below the surface. Despite many attempts to unearth its treasures, the island continues to hold tightly to its hidden wealth.
The island itself has undergone significant changes over the years. Originally covered with red oak trees, a plague of black ants in the 1800s devastated these trees, leaving the island mostly covered with spruce trees and other vegetation.
This transformation of the landscape did little to deter hopeful treasure seekers. During one of the many excavation efforts, a stone with a strange inscription was found deep underground, hinting at a significant fortune buried nearby.
This has only added to the allure of the island, which is also riddled with tales of supernatural occurrences and a grim prediction that the treasure will not be found until seven lives have been lost in the search. To date, six have tragically died in pursuit of this fortune.
The island’s small size — approximately 1 mile long and half a mile wide — was meticulously divided into small lots in the mid-18th century. Yet, the intrigue surrounding it dates back even further.
Authors like Darcy O’Connor have written about the island’s captivating history, which has been known to attract even historical figures such as Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Before becoming the 32nd president of the United States, Roosevelt was fascinated by the tales of treasure and even invested in the Old Gold Salvage and Wrecking Company, which was involved in early explorations of the island.
His interest in the island’s legend brought him there several times during the operations of this company.
Throughout the years, Oak Island has captivated the imaginations of many — from seasoned treasure hunters to casual enthusiasts and historians. Each group has been drawn by the possibility of uncovering something extraordinary, a testament to human curiosity and the allure of the unknown.
Despite the many theories and extensive searches, the island remains a challenging and strange place, promising much but revealing little — keeping its stories and potential treasures closely guarded against the backdrop of its now spruce-dominated landscape.
As Jack keeps searching, the story widens to include other great tales of legendary treasures and the endless hunt they spark.
Oak Island versus Other Treasure Hunts
The list of items found includes a 17th-century Spanish copper coin, a Roman sword (whose authenticity is questionable), and a manuscript possibly dating back to the 12th century.
Other finds include a small piece of fabric that could be part of an ancient book, a bookbinder tool associated with this fragment, and a piece of sheepskin parchment featuring what appears to be old writing.
Discoveries also feature a human bone with potential Middle Eastern origins, a lead cross from sometime between 1200 and the 17th century with a distinctive square hole, an old brooch adorned with rhodolite garnet, among other things like a metal hinge, an ox shoe, and a carved stone slab similar to others found on the surface.
While interesting, these finds haven’t lived up to the grand expectations of uncovering a massive treasure trove.
Criticism surrounds the show, with some viewers arguing that it might prioritize entertainment over genuine historical investigation — possibly twisting or embellishing facts to draw more viewers.
Others believe that if there was ever significant treasure on Oak Island, it likely has been found and removed long ago, leaving nothing but minor artifacts for today’s hunters.
This idea of searching for hidden wealth isn’t unique to Oak Island.
Similar quests for treasure are happening around the globe. One notable example is the legend of Störtebeker’s golden burial in Germany.
The story goes that Klaus Störtebeker, a famous German pirate who was executed in 1401, continues to haunt the small island of Tollow in the Baltic Sea to attempt to settle his restless spirit. It is said his remains were moved to the uninhabited island of Tollow.
Legend claims he was buried in a grand golden coffin linked to a golden chain that supposedly surfaces occasionally in the sea.
Despite this intriguing tale, his grave has never been found. There is a belief that one local fisherman always knows the location of Störtebeker’s grave — a hidden secret passed down through generations. Yet, no one knows who this current keeper of the puzzle is.
These stories, though colorful and rich in detail, often end with more questions than answers.
Similar to the unresolved puzzle of Störtebeker’s grave, the treasures of Oak Island remain impenetrable. With each discovery adding just a little more intrigue, but never fulfilling the dream of finding a large cache of riches.
However, the search itself seems to be the real draw. The ongoing quest, marked by moments of minor discoveries and frequent disappointments, continues to pull in adventurers and viewers alike.
It’s this continuous hope — the “what if” — that keeps the hunters and the audience coming back, possibly more attached to the drama of the search than to any realistic expectation of finding vast wealth.
Oak Island’s true treasure may indeed be its ability to stir the imagination and the perpetual hope of a major discovery, rather than any substantial riches buried in its ground.
The narrative woven through episodes of intense searching and minor findings is what keeps the audience returning — hooked on the adventure and the possibility that the next dig could be the big one.
Gardiner’s Island, a small piece of land in eastern Suffolk County, New York, has belonged to the Gardiner family for generations.
This island, not far from Manhattan, became a temporary hideaway for pirate Captain William Kidd in 1699.
Heading toward Boston, Kidd chose this spot to hide his treasure, hoping to clear his tarnished reputation. With Mrs. Gardiner’s permission, the owner at the time, he buried his treasure in a ravine on her property.
In exchange, he gave Mrs. Gardiner a piece of cloth woven with gold threads, alongside a grim warning — if he returned and the treasure was gone, he would take the life of either her or her son.
The stash Kidd buried was extensive — including gold coins, silver, silver dust, bars of silver, Spanish dollars, and valuable gems like rubies and diamonds, along with ornate items such as candlesticks and porringers.
One of these diamonds was selfishly kept by Mr. Gardiner for himself instead of giving it to his daughter, as he had originally intended.
Today, even though the island is private property, a plaque stands as a reminder of where Kidd’s treasure was supposedly buried.
Kidd had begun his life of piracy with a legal privateering license granted by the British East India Company. His career started legitimately, but soon deteriorated as he turned against the British and began seizing their ships.
His criminal actions eventually caught up with him when he returned to New York. He was arrested and sent back to England, where he was tried and executed.
Although it’s claimed that all of Kidd’s treasure was recovered, the story has prompted countless individuals to search the area for centuries, hoping to find something missed by others.
Shifting to another story of buried wealth, we find the tale of the Lima Treasure, which ended up on Isla de Coco, Panama around 1820.
This massive treasure, originating from Lima, Peru, was meant to be transported by Captain William Thompson, who was entrusted by the Church to safely deliver it. Yet during the journey on his ship, The Mary Dear, Thompson was overcome by greed.
He murdered his passengers and redirected the ship to Cocos Island, Costa Rica, where he decided to hide the treasure.
Thompson was eventually captured and executed in Canada in 1844. Before he died, he revealed the location of the hidden treasure to a man named Meister Keading.
This act led hundreds of treasure hunters to Cocos Island, driven by hopes of finding the buried riches.
Among them was August Gissler, a notable German treasure hunter who lived on the island from 1889 to 1908. Despite their relentless efforts and the compelling legends fueling their pursuit, none of these treasure seekers succeeded in uncovering Thompson’s hidden wealth.
From hidden clues to old questions, the search moves beyond Oak Island to explore more exciting legends of lost riches.
The Real Value of Treasure Islands
In the 1990s, a company called Vladi Private Islands was in the business of selling islands, including one called Cocos Island in Panama.
Around that time, a historian from Panama got in touch. He warned the company that they shouldn’t sell the island for just a few hundred thousand — he believed it was actually worth much more, around $60 million.
This surprising claim came from his belief that there might be a great treasure buried there.
Taking this seriously, Vladi Private Islands sought help from a treasure expert, William S. Crooker, who was well known for his research on a treasure found at Oak Island in Nova Scotia, Canada.
Intrigued by the potential of a similar find in Panama, he traveled there to investigate further. He looked into old maps and histories of the area.
His skills in reading these maps led him to a remarkable possibility — the treasure many thought was hidden in Lima could actually be on Panama’s Cocos Island.
But there was a complication. It was unclear whether the treasure was on Panama’s Cocos Island, or a different Cocos Island just across the border in Costa Rica.
Up to now, no one has conducted a thorough search on the Panamanian island to find out the truth.
This scenario is somewhat reminiscent of the tale in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, a book that since its 1883 publication has defined the idea of treasure hunting.
The story has had a lasting impact on both the real world of treasure hunters and the fictional world of literature.
It introduced unforgettable characters and elements like the talking parrot, the one-legged pirate, and the treasure map with a red cross.
Interestingly, Stevenson didn’t come up with all these ideas on his own. He adapted many elements from earlier authors like Daniel Defoe, Edgar Allan Poe, and Washington Irving, freely using their concepts.
The idea for Treasure Island came about quite unexpectedly. Stevenson was on vacation in the Scottish Highlands with his stepson, and they were drawing maps for fun.
One of these maps depicted an imaginary island with various features like bays, forests, and ruins, and even included a smaller offshore island named Skeleton Island.
This playful project turned into the inspiration for Stevenson’s most successful book.
Unfortunately, the original map they created was lost before the book went to print. However, Stevenson later reconstructed it from the descriptions in his novel, and this map is now included in nearly every copy of the book.
Despite the initial loss, Treasure Island remains a popular work, inspiring countless readers with dreams of finding hidden treasures.
Further north in Scotland lies Ailsa Craig, an island whose name translates to “Fairy Rock.”
Legend says that this island was formed when the devil himself was thrown out of heaven and his claw scratched out a piece of the land, which fell into the sea — becoming Ailsa Craig.
Rising 338 meters above sea level, this cone-shaped island is mostly uninhabited, known more for its granite used in making curling stones than for any hidden treasures.
Yet, like many isolated places, it has inspired numerous tales of mystery.
It has served as a sanctuary for Catholics during times of religious conflict and as a prison for Jacobite rebels.
In modern times, Ailsa Craig remains an important landmark for seabirds and maritime travelers, its history blending myth and practicality in equal measure.
Each of these stories — from Oak Island to Ailsa Craig — reflects humanity’s timeless fascination with mystery, adventure, and the promise of discovery.
While few ever find tangible riches, the journey itself often becomes the real reward.
These tales remind us that perhaps the greatest treasures lie not beneath the earth but within the spirit of those who continue to dream, dig, and believe in the extraordinary.
In the end, whether it’s Oak Island, Cocos Island, or some hidden corner of the sea, the true allure of treasure hunting remains unchanged.
It’s about the thrill of the chase, the clues unearthed along the way, and the shared hope that the next turn of the spade might reveal something remarkable.
For every legend told, there’s a new seeker ready to write the next chapter — proving that the human desire to uncover the unknown is, itself, a treasure without end.
Tell us what you think:
Would you dare to dig for buried treasure, or do you believe some mysteries are better left untouched?
