Secrets of the Dead (2000–…): Season 18, Episode 11 - Gangster's Gold - full transcript

♪♪

[ Indistinct shouting,
glass shattering ]

- In the 1920s,
Prohibition caused

unprecedented social upheaval
throughout America

and brought untold riches

to a select group
of kingpin mobsters.

Legend has it, Dutch Schultz,

a member of New York City's
gangster elite,

left more than
50 million dollars' worth

of gold and precious gems buried
somewhere in Upstate New York.

Targeted by mob assassins
at the height of his power,



Schultz would die
before he could reveal

the true location
of his infamous treasure.

- Dixie Davis saw
the 2-foot-by-3-foot steel box

on Dutch Schultz's desk
loaded with riches,

and he asked Dutch,
"What is that for?"

And Dutch said, "This is where
I'm keeping all my riches."

- [ Beeping ]
- Nearly a century later,

a new generation of searchers
comes online.

- Oh, I got a nice signal.
- In a tech-powered world,

Schultz's fortune lives on
as a holy grail

for treasure hunters
around the globe.

- Careful when you come over
this tree you don't trip.

- Today, three separate teams

set off on unique paths
in pursuit of the buried prize.



- Can we get down there?

- Professional treasure hunters
Steve Zazulyk and Ryan Fazekas

bring decades of experience
to their search.

- We have
ground-penetrating radar.

We can do
high-definition imagery.

We can do heat sensing.

- This map came off of Google.

- Weekend sleuths Rob Macedonio
and Erika Borkenhagen

hope to strike it lucky

as they follow a promising lead
they found online.

- We're here because this is
the only geographical location

that makes sense.

- There is a 1927 house on...

- Ross Getman
and his daughter Grace

use their impressive
research skills

to hunt for Dutch's treasure.

- Now we have the advantage
of technology

and reconstructing history.

- Generations of treasure hunters
have thrown their lot

into the search
for Dutch's hidden wealth,

but more than 80 years later,

not a single trace
has been found...

- [ Detector beeping ]
- ...until now.

- Holy cow!
- Oh, my God!

- "Gangster's Gold."
- No one's gonna believe this.

♪♪

- So, yeah, I'm pretty sure
we're right where we gotta be.

- Hotel's here. Right?

And, uh... Oh, here's Frank.

The man is here!

- Okay. Perfect. Frank!
- What's up, guys?

- How's it goin', buddy?
- You made it.

- Made it.
- My name is Steve Zazulyk,

and I'm a professional
treasure hunter,

and I travel
throughout the world

basically looking for treasure.

And I've been fortunate enough
to be on some of the most

amazing treasure hunts
in the world.

- Steve and I work well together.
- We complement each other.

It gets tiring out there,
and it's great

to have a shoulder to lean on
and somebody to work with.

- So, this is
an awesome property.

Back here, we think that there's
a cave where Dutch Schultz

hid his bootlegging liquor
and possibly treasure.

- Nice!

- Steve and Ryan
begin their search

at the ruins of a hotel

along the Hudson River
outside Yonkers.

Their investigation
has led them to believe

Schultz may have used
the abandoned site to hide

his elaborate bootlegging
operations from the law.

- We've got the map
that's gonna lead us

right back there,
and hopefully we can...

- Diligent research has uncovered
a vintage street map of Yonkers

that helps the team
pinpoint their search.

- I'm Frank Lopergolo.
- I am a...

Besides being
a retired police officer,

I am a geotech engineer.

I do underground locating.

- Frank's got a company with
really high-end GPR equipment.

He typically will go
throughout the United States

and find, you know, certain
locations with buried tunnels

and all kinds
of really old stuff.

That is freakin' amazing.
Look at this.

- The secret cache
left by Dutch Schultz

was thought to contain
the spoils of a lifetime

spent fighting
for complete dominance

of New York's
criminal underworld.

- Dutch Schultz was originally
named Arthur Flegenheimer.

He was born in 1902

in the Lower East Side
of New York City

to German Jewish parents,

and like a lot
of new immigrants,

he lived in absolute poverty

and in a sort of
rather vile environment.

There weren't exactly
helicopter parents around,

so he joined a youth gang,

and the thing
that Schultz noticed

was that these gangsters,

unlike most of the men
in the neighborhood,

seemed to have money,
they had panache,

so, to them,
crime really did pay.

He, uh, started
burglarizing apartments.

He wasn't a very good burglar,
though,

and he got caught,
and at age 17,

he was incarcerated.

And interestingly enough,
though,

this actually served as a bit
of an education for him.

Then, you know, he simply
latched onto a business

which was selling lousy beer.

His marketing technique was
basically to go to speakeasies

and say,
"Would you like to buy my beer?"

Your alternative
is to be severely beaten

"and have your speakeasy
smashed to pieces."

So he really benefited from that

and became known
as the Beer Baron of the Bronx.

- Steve and Ryan
believe the abandoned hotel,

destroyed by fire,
allowed Schultz

to situate his operations
far from prying eyes.

- It's unbelievable that
we're in Yonkers, New York,

and that this place
is, like, hidden.

Like, if you didn't know
it was here,

like, you wouldn't even
be able to find it.

- Yeah, this is it.
- Oh, wow. Check that out.

- And it's not that people
haven't been looking for it.

It's just that
they haven't been finding it.

- Hey. Look at this.
- Look at the wall.

And both of us have the drive.

That's what's really key for us,

is we've got the drive
to find treasure.

- What's the deal
with this thing?

Why are we looking
for a cave entrance down here?

- Dutch Schultz kept
all of his booze in here,

so if it's a spot
where you're gonna hide stuff,

if he trusts his booze here,

he could've had anything
in here.

[ Big band playing "When
the Saints Go Marching In" ]

[ Whistling,
lively conversations ]

- At the stroke of midnight
on January 17, 1920,

the party was officially overas
Prohibition went into effect.

♪♪

- Prohibition was now
the law of the land,

and this was the rather
well-meaning but ill-fated

attempt to ban alcohol
in the United States.

And into this void
came gangsters

who were very happy to supply
what a lot of Americans wanted.

- Dutch Schultz
would fight his way

to become one of the most
powerful and ruthless gangsters

of the Prohibition era.

- Oh, he was good,
far as I'm concerned.

I don't know about anybody else.

He was good. He was...
He was... He was good. Good.

I got along with him good.
He...

- Was he funny? Was he...

- Yeah, yeah, he had a lot
of jokes and stuff, yeah.

He was a good family man, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

But if you stepped on his toes,
you were in trouble.

- Ex-New York gangster
Stanley Grauso,

the last living member
of Dutch Schultz's gang,

worked as an enforcer
for the mobster in the 1930s.

- We went to Vegas
for his 103rd birthday.

So, he'll be 104 this year.

- As Prohibition took hold,

New York was overrun
by powerful gangs.

Bootlegging profits soared,

and authorities
were overwhelmed.

Kingpin mobster Lucky Luciano

convinced rival mobs
to work together

under a collective
known as The Syndicate,

marking the birth
of organized crime in America.

- What Lucky Luciano did

was dividing up
organized-crime gangs

into what he called families,

and this is sort of a reflection
of the Sicilian heritage,

family-oriented.

So we're gonna call
these gangs "families."

Initially,
there were five families.

They were the major gangsin
New York City and New Jersey.

And each one had a sort of
carefully delineated territory.

- The Gambino family
ran Queens and Brooklyn.

The Genovese family
took Manhattan.

The Lucchese family
had a presence in The Bronx.

The Profaci and Bonanno
families shared Brooklyn.

And the outsider, Dutch Schultz,

ruled over The Bronx and Harlem.

- In our days, you could
step on anybody you want

'cause there were no mobs.

Everybody was for their selves.

There wasn't such a thing
as a godfather.

There were five families.

There were no godfathers.

That's what the federals
wanted people to believe

so they can whack
the Five Families.

Make them think
they were gangsters.

And which there were only...

- They were only businessmen.
- Yeah, that's so.

- They all had their jobs to do,
right?

- Yeah.

"This is your territory.
That's your territory."

South, west. Everybody...

You don't go to north or south.
You stay in your own.

If you start moving,
then there's trouble.

- And according to legend,

Dutch used to settle arguments
with a baseball bat,

that somebody would give him
a mildly offensive insult

or there'd be some tiffin the... you
know, the patrons,

and he would wave in there
with his bat

and settle all the problems.

- He was a cheapskate.

He wore two-dollar suits,
by his own admission,

and Lucky Luciano used to make
fun of him in the press saying,

"Oh, Dutch Schultz, he's a slob."

He wears two-dollar suits

"with the threads
comin' out of 'em."

Lucky Luciano, of course,
was the new modern-day gangster

who would wear 30-dollar suits.

I'm Bruce Alterman.

I'm a fourth-generation
private investigator.

My grandfather, Harry Alterman,
had told me stories

when I was young
about Dutch Schultz.

So ever since I was 6 years old,

I've heard this name
Dutch Schultz,

but it turned out later in life

I learned about
Dutch Schultz's treasure.

And I'm not talking
just off the top of my head.

I'm talking from facts
given firsthand

by Dixie Davis,
the lawyer for Dutch Schultz,

who in a 1939 Collier's article,

he said that he saw
the steel box of treasure.

♪♪

And he asked Dutch,
"What is that?"

And Dutch said to Dixie Davis,

"This is where I'm going to keep
all my riches."

[ Hinges creak ]

It's a box approximately2-feet by
3-feet, made of steel.

Full of diamonds.

[ Diamonds clinking ]

Full of gold coins.

[ Coins clinking ]

Full of 1,000-dollar bills
that have gold backs on them.

[ Lid slams ]

And it's just a matter
for someone now to find it.

♪♪

- One of the items
that Dutch allegedly

put into this metal box,

in addition to cash and some
jewelry, were Liberty bonds.

Now, these were bonds
that were issued

during the First World War

that helped the United States
government finance the war.

The fact that Dutch Schultz's

Liberty bonds
were never redeemed

is seen as proof

that he actually had
some sort of treasure

and that it's never been found,
because you would assume

that if somebody
stumbled across a metal box

with a million dollars' worth
of Liberty bonds,

that they would
immediately cash it in.

- Bruce believes
the value of the treasure

has only increased over time.

- They estimated it back then
to be worth $7 million in 1935.

I estimate today,
if you were to uncover it,

that same treasure chest
would be worth $150 million.

♪♪

- Inspired by the legend and lore
of Dutch's cache,

generations of treasure hunters
have journeyed

to the Catskill Mountains
in Upstate New York.

♪♪

- Yeah, it's so crazy. I've never
even heard about this guy...

- Oh.
- ...when Al Capone, you know,

is so much more famous.

- Well, he's more famous,
or more widely known,

- but this guy was a true mobster.
- Yeah. Right?

- My name's Erika.
- I'm Rob.

And we're the ones
who are gonna find

Dutch Schultz's lost treasure.

He had a...

Packard, I think it was,

or a Studebaker
or something like that.

And he drove his car...

- Rob and Erika have come armed
with a secret weapon...

A mysterious hand-drawn map
to the treasure.

- I'm a volunteer firefighter
and a full-time truck driver,

so I don't get a lot
of spare time, so when I do,

I like to go out
treasure hunting

and the potential of finding
amazing, wonderful things.

- So, I love Rob, you know?
- He's like a brother to me.

So when I got the call, you
know, to find this treasure,

I'm like, "You know,
if there's anybody in the area"

who's gonna find this treasure,
it's gonna be Rob."

- And if we look
at our map, okay?

We have a pine grove,
which is also listed right here.

And this is supposedly

the original map
drawn by the Dutch,

for Lulu, who was entrusted
to safeguard his treasure

because at the time, he was
getting ready to go to jail...

- Right, right.
- ...for tax evasion.

- Ostensibly linked to Schultz's

personal bodyguard,
Lulu Rosenkrantz,

the map has long been central
to the treasure's lore.

Rob and Erika,
intent on testing its veracity,

push deeper into
the Catskills' forest.

- This is where the treasure
should have been buried.

"X" marks the spot.

We're standing right about here
on this current train bed,

but right here's
where our pine trees are,

and I think that's where we're gonna
start and we're gonna check it out.

- And we have to go
right through there.

- We'll go right through there.

- We're here because
all the research says

that he knew this area.

- Are you sure
this is the only way in?

- Yes, I'm positive... ow...
- That this is... ow!

We're currently
in Boiceville, New York.

It's east of Phoenicia,
which is the spot

that was rumored to be
Dutch Schultz's getaway.

It's the place
where he liked to go.

- For decades,

scores of treasure hunters'
hopes and dreams

have played out
in the Catskill wilds

surrounding
the town of Phoenicia,

and to this day,
it remains a hotspot

on the trail
to Schultz's riches.

- He came up to Phoenicia.
- Everyone loved him in Phoenicia.

He'd come up to the Phoenicia
hotel and buy everyone dinner.

Everyone knew him.
He'd stay around here.

He loved the people.
The people knew him.

He was very familiar
with everything

because he had his distilleries

out in the notches
of these mountains.

So he was well-acquainted
with the area.

- To keep the taps flowing,

Schultz set up commercial
bootlegging operations

deep in the Catskills,
far from New York City

and its droves
of Prohibition officers.

Under cover of night,

his fleet of trucks
would trundle into the city,

the precious cargo secured by
his growing army of strongmen.

- According to the ownerof
Devil's Tombstone campground,

he gave permission
for the treasure hunters

to come dig on his land

as long as he got half the worth
of the treasure.

Well, he woke up one day
to a giant backhoe

on his property digging
a 20-foot-by-10-foot hole,

and he was at his
wit's end saying,

"Everybody get out
of my campground!

You made it look like the moon!"

- Back in Yonkers,
the search continues

for a hidden cave
tied to Dutch's treasure.

- Now, what about up top?

Do you think you might be able
to get a GPR reading?

- It's a lot of rock, but we can
probably get a shot inside.

- That would be awesome. I mean,
if we could actually verify

that this is the cave
that went to the hotel,

that would be epic.

- Now, I wanna
show you something.

Take a look at this wall.
Take a look at this structure.

You see by the rockwork,
we know this thing is period.

It's at least period.

And then go down there
and look at that building

built on top of that wall.

What's that remind you of?

- Some little... Some type
of house. I have no idea.

- Like a guard shack
or a gun turret?

- It makes perfect sense.

You got a guy up there
with a machine gun.

Right? I can just see it.

Guys up there.
Nobody can come through.

- Alright.
- Let's get up top with the GPR

- and see what we can find.
- Sounds good.

- Let's do it.
- Sounds good.

- Right along here, we should
beable to see right where we were.

- Yeah. Exactly. I think we might
have to work the roadway

and then work it
back up into there.

- Frank boots up the GPR unit
and begins to scan the area.

The team hopes the technology
will find evidence of a cave

potentially used by Schultz
to stash his riches.

- Are you getting
anything at all?

- I am.

- Ground-penetrating radar
sends thousands of radio waves

deep into the earth
every second.

An on board antenna
records these waves

as they interact
with materials underground,

creating an intricate 3-D scan
of what lies beneath.

- Come on over and check it out.

This is your road surface.
And what you see here is open.

- About 12 feet to 15 feet.
- Look at that, eh?

- Now, that's one swipe, but
at the right depth, it's open.

Like, it's incredible that
he would have brought that out

right away right over the spot,

right over the spot
where we were below.

And on the screen I saw it.

It... It...
The screen showed a cave below

at exactly the right spot
where the hotel was.

- And the tunnel came up, and
the booze and everything else

would have gone
right down through down below.

- That was Dutch's man cave.
- That was Dutch's man cave.

Everybody's got one.
That was Dutch's.

- In October 1929,
the worst stock-market crash

in the history
of the United States

brought financial ruin
to millions across the nation.

- The Black Friday,
the stock-market crash.

The trouble started.
That was when the...

Who's jumping out of windows.
[ Stammering ]

[ Chuckles ] All that.

- This had not just
an economic impact...

Because obviously a lot
of people were impoverished...

It had a huge
sociological impact.

People weren't spending money.

They weren't putting it
in the bank.

They weren't putting it
in the stock market.

They were often literallyputting
it under their mattress.

- The Dutch was smart.
- He didn't play the stock market.

He put it under the mattress.

He put the money
under the mattress.

- People didn't trust the banks.

They put all their wealth
in a box and buried it.

There were stores
selling these safes at the time

specifically called
"burial safes."

- I'm willing to betif there
is, in fact, a treasure

that it's going to bear
a lot of cash and a lot of gold

because during
the Great Depression,

gold hoarding was a big deal,
and I think we're gonna find

more gold than anything
if we do find anything.

- He loved gold coins
because they were untraceable.

They were easy to transport.
Easy to pay people.

So if someone received a payment
from Dutch Schultz,

he would give them two or three
gold coins and say, "Here."

And you can transform it.
You can melt it.

You can put it
into different shapes.

It's easily transferable.

Andeveryone

loves gold.
Everyone.

- In terms of
what we're talking about,

we're talking about millions.

If it was $7 million
in 1935 dollars,

it might be$40 or $50 or $60 million today.

- I like that number.

- It all boils down to

where did Dutch Schultz
put his head

"on April 12, 1935?"

- What's that supposed to mean?

- Well he left where
he had had the iron chest.

My name is Ross Getman.
I like true-crime mysteries.

And I think of myself
as a bounty hunter.

This isn't about vision
and fantasies

and nothing better to do.

This is about
a love of library research

and a confidence that
the right historical research

can solve cold cases,
even dating to 1935.

- In 1935, Dutch Schultz
stood trial for tax evasion

in Syracuse, New York.

Ross and his daughter Grace
live in Syracuse

and are convinced the treasure
is buried nearby.

- ...planes, trains,
and they had a decoy automobile.

And that was...

- That sounds like the plot
of a bad spy movie.

- No. It sounds like the plot
of a good gangster movie.

- My name's Grace Getman.
- I'm a junior.

And I live
in Syracuse, New York.

That mad man you just talked to
is my father.

- Well, he left where
he had had the iron chest,

and then he went to Syracuse,
um...

but he didn't show up
for a couple of days later.

He and Lulu... Lulu was
the only one he trusted...

- In a mystery like this one,

you really need someone
who can do the research,

find the facts,
and have actual information.

I mean, if you show up
in the middle of the woods

with a metal detector, great,

but where does that
really get you?

You need to know where to be.

- What instead you want to do
is focus on where Dutch was

when he and Lulu were
transporting the iron chest,

leaving on April 11, 1935,

and showing up without the chest
a couple of days later.

- My father might be
a big fan of researching

and finding out the "facts,"

but I'm more of a "get 'er done"
type of person,

so I am beyond ready
to go out there,

use that metal detector,
and get this thing done.

- Wow. Man!

- You must be Travis.

- Hey. How you guys doing? Yeah.
- How you doing?

- With the Yonkers site
coming up dry,

Steve and Ryan have come

to Concordia College
in Bronxville, New York,

to search for a rumored tunnel
built by Dutch and his gang.

- So, tell us
a little bit about this.

- Well, this is one
of our dorms now,

but allegedly once upon a time

it was owned by the gangster
Dutch Schultz.

I lived here
for a couple of semesters,

and so I'm a little familiar
with the place.

Supposedly there's a tunnel
that goes from this house

straight over there
to Ward House.

- Wow.
- But even older than that,

it was supposed to be
a tavern apparently.

- Oh my. Okay.

- So we got a tavern over here.
- Right.

- We got Dutch over here.

Cops coming in.
Zoom out the tunnel.

- Right.
- Right? Very cool.

♪♪

- Frank uses the GPR

to scan for evidence of
the alleged bootlegging tunnel.

♪♪

- I'm showing
a perfectly straight line.

Every 4 or 5 feet,
I've got a void.

It may have caved in,

but a perfectly straight line

to consistently have
soft soil, void soil?

I think we may have
the remnants of a tunnel.

- Really?
- And it's a straight line?

- From the edge of this well,

straight along that flower bed,

along the edge of that sidewalk
to those stairs.

And that's where I lose it,
at the stairs.

And maybe we'll pick it up
on the other side.

- So then we ask Frank, "Okay.
- What can we do to confirm this?"

And he goes, "Let's go back
to this place, the other side",

to see if it's
on this side, too."

- See if it's gonna line up.

♪♪

- Every pass I've made so far.

- Oh, my gosh.
- Look at this. Look at this.

- Wow!

- Dead on.
- And it's perfect.

- It's right on that line
that we had across the street.

The line across the street's
a little shaky.

This line is dead on
every single time.

- That's incredible.
- You've got yourself a tunnel.

- Oh, my God.
- That's incredible!

- Whoa!

So, now they're saying
that quite possibly...

We've been talking to

- the historians about this...
- Okay. Yeah.

- ...and they're saying
that this treasure

could be worth $150 million.

- What?
- Right?

And it could be right here.

- Could be right under there?

- Yes.
- Oh, man!

[ Big-band music playing ]

[ Lively conversations ]

- This is the day
we have long hoped for.

Let us drink
to a full liberation

of the American people!

- Happy days are here again!

- When the 18th Amendment
was repealed

and Prohibition ended in 1933,

Dutch Schultz's bootlegging
empire quickly dried up.

- As it became
increasingly obvious

that Prohibition
was on its last legs,

any gangster with any brains

started sniffing out
new opportunities.

Schultz sensed there was
some huge money to be made

in something called
the numbers racket.

This was basically
just an illegal lottery,

and it was hugely popular
in low-income areas

and enormously popular
in Harlem,

among, you know,
African-Americans.

- Dutch Schultz.
- Why did he come to Harlem?

Greed and proximity.

My name is Jacob Morris,

and I'm the director of
the Harlem Historical Society.

Of course, the popularity
of the people on the street

playing the numbers,

that was a tremendous
revenue stream.

- And all it essentially was,
was for a few pennies,

you would get "a policy slip,"

which is the rough equivalent
of a lottery ticket.

The policy slip
would have usually

a three-digit number on it.

If your number "hit," meaning
your number was selected,

you would win a small prize,

like $10, $20.

- 10 bucks in the middle
of the Great Depression

was like having a $500 bill now.

[ Laughs ] That...

You know, you could do
something with that.

- Hello.
- Hi.

- Got your number ready?
- Yes, sir.

- What's your number?
- 418. 412. 475.

Quarter each.

- Policy slips would be collected
by runners.

The runner would take the money
and the policy slips

to a "policy banker."

And this is sort of a fancy name

for basically a gangster
who ran the operation.

- People have rumored
that the take, the profit

on this policy game

was $60,000 per week,
maybe more.

And sometimes it would gross
as much as $300,000.

- He sensed an opportunity

when most other gangstersjust
turned their noses up at it

and became unbelievably wealthy
and powerful as a result.

- He had 10 banks,

and everybody
had to work for him.

Nobody owned nothing.

He owned...

He took... He took possession
of everything.

- Now, for the last time,

are you gonna keep out
of our territory or not?!

- I'm not.

- At barely 20 years old,

Stanley began working
for Schultz as a strongman...

- But I don't need
any protection.

- ...collecting protection moneyfrom
the mobster's many victims.

- How I met The Dutch
was in the Bronx.

So, The Dutch told me,
"What would you like to do?

I'm handling the numbers.
You know anything about them?"

I said, "Yeah, I used to have
a book joint in New York."

I ran a five-and-dime joint.

I said, "Yeah, I know a lot"

about the payoffs
and everything."

So, "Okay, I want you
to work as an enforcer"

that... to take care of things."

See, them days, you wanna
whack somebody, you do it.

You know,
nobody have to say nothing.

- One of the only people
to resist Dutch

was a fascinating woman
named Stephanie St. Clair.

She was
an African-American woman.

This is quite unusualin
gangster circles at the time.

She was fabulously wealthy.
She allegedly had 40 runners.

So she was a tough nut to crack.

And Schultz tried
to initially charm her

in his weaselly, oily fashion.

- So he went to...
- He went to the Madam and says,

"Make sure that
none of your boys move in.

They gotta work under me."

- He tried to intimidate her,

and that didn't
really work, either.

And to Schultz's astonishment,
she fought back.

- The war between, um,
Madam St. Clair,

with Bumpy Johnson
as her general...

- Right.

- ...and Dutch Schultz
and his forces

- went on for a couple of years.
- Battling. Yes.

- So you're talking about
300 Tommy guns

against a few revolvers
up here in Harlem.

You know what's gonna win.
Dutch Schultz is gonna win.

- When you're that kind
of a guy, right?

- Kind of a guy that... Right?
- A killer.

He supposedly killed 200 people
by himself.

- I mean, ruthless.
- Ruthless.

- Absolutely ruthless. Right?
- Yes.

They said you could spit at him,
you could call him names,

but if you steal a dollar,
you're dead.

♪♪

♪♪

- I got this feeling...

that we're...

gonna find something.

Wow. Wow. I got this really...

- So it would have been like...

From the outside,
I think further down.

- Yeah.

- Crevasse down there.

Possibly in here?

- Yeah. There's a lot
of rooms down here.

- Oh, lookit, lookit, lookit.
- Look at that.

- That's... What?

- Like. Look at this, the...

It's completely been sealed up.

- Yeah.
- It's right here.

- This is it.
- For sure.

It's exactly where we werebecause
when Frank was out there

with the GPR,
I kind of walked it,

I stepped it,
and, I mean, it's obvious.

- Lookit.
- It's right... I know.

- There's your tunnel.

Like, it's out of a movie.
It's out of a movie.

When you're looking at the wall,
there's stone, there's brick

that's been placed in there
and stone.

And it's in the perfect shape
of a tunnel...

exactly

where we got
the GPR hit on the outside.

No doubt about it
there was a tunnel there.

- Excited by their discovery,

the team imagines how Dutch
might have used the hideout.

- And even this trap door here,

this could have been used
for the pickup trucks and that

that were transporting
the moonshine and the booze

back in the day.

- You're right.
- You're absolutely right.

- They back up.
- They load up the moonshine.

The Prohibition. Out the door.

- Hear the cops upstairs,
whip through the tunnel.

And nobody...
Nobody has put this together.

- Yeah. No.
- Wow.

You got yourself a tunnel there.
For sure.

- That's where the tunnel is.

- My heart started racing,
and I was like,

"I can't believe
that we're seeing the tunnel."

And I could just envision
Dutch Schultz

running through there,

with, you know, the cops
showing up or whoever,

and escaping out the other side
through the well.

- It's surreal. It really is.

- While Steve and Ryan move on

from the site
at Concordia College,

Rob and Erika make
their own major discovery.

- Oh, wow! Look at this!
- It's massive!

- Wow! That is awesome!
- That's crazy!

- I wasn't expecting
to find this here.

- No.
- You want to know what it is?

- What?

- Look what we got here
on our map.

What's that say right there?

- It's a still site.
- Still... Yeah.

- It's a still site.

- This is a still.
- This is the still?

- This is where
they made moonshine,

I'll bet you anything.

- Wow!

- They heaved this thing in here,
and they were...

They were cooking shine
right here.

- Wow! Right here next
to the river and everything.

- Uh-huh. Fresh water source.
- Out of the way.

There's the pine grove
right back there

that we just came through.

Now, we've got what?

We've got a foundation over
here, which we checked out.

- That was on the map.
- That was correct.

- We've got the road leading in.
- Yeah.

- We've got the train tracks.
- We've got the old train bed.

- We found the pine trees.
- Okay.

Everything is pretty much here
on this map

that says, you know,
it should be here

with the exception
of the Schultz treasure.

- It's proof that this map...
- It is.

- ...you know, is legitimate.
- I think we're onto something.

- That's insane.
- We're onto something.

- This is awesome.

- Tim! The man!
- How are ya?

- Welcome to Foxfire.
- Fantastic.

- How was your trip?
- It was okay. A little traffic.

- Bruce pursues
a lead he discovered

while researching
Johnny "Kid" Troy,

a champion boxer connected
to Schultz's inner circle.

- We just moved to the Catskills
not too long ago,

my wife and I.

And, you know,
having grown up, you know,

and all the stories
that my grandfather had...

Never kind of put it together.

Then when we moved here,
that's all people talk about,

is Dutch Schultz, Dutch Schultz.

So, recently,
I was going through

a bunch of my grandfather's old,
um, journals and articles.

He did a lot of writing
when he was younger.

And started to come
across the word "The Baron"

all the time.

- Dutch Schultz,
the Beer Baron of the Bronx.

- Yeah.
- Who else? None other.

- So, I didn't know
a whole lot about it,

but it started putting
some connections together.

So it seems that my grandfather

was a bit of muscle
for Dutch Schultz.

And we got these, uh, pictures

that I found
kind of interesting.

They were, you know, a picture
of his famous moon car,

which was what, you know...

Family legend has he used

when he had to do some
protection for Dutch Schultz.

- Probably armored
at the time with lead.

- I imagine.
- I mean, it looks pretty big.

Then this is what
really kind of got me.

If you were to take a look
at this picture,

this looks like some of
the creeks around these parts.

And, you know, rumor has it
that the treasure

is buried somewhere
up in around Phoenicia.

- What fascinates me
about this picture right here

is that your grandfather is
a bodyguard for Dutch Schultz,

and he's just taking a picture
of Stony Clove Creek

for no reason at all

other than there's a vehicle
in the background

and there's a shoreline.

- Yeah.
- It wasn't done back then.

People didn't take scenery
photos and waste their film.

It was very expensive.

And it's not
a very scenic picture.

- No.
- It has to mean something.

- Yeah.
- Now, my contention

is that they transported
the heavy steel box

and they buried it
along Stony Clove Creek.

So, viewing this picture now,

it's my opinion
that we have a link

to Dutch Schultz's treasure
like no one else.

And if, uh,
we can match up the location

- in that picture...
- Right on.

-...with a location present day,

I would say let's break out
the metal detectors

because no one
has had a lead like that

in the time
that we've encountered.

- With the incarceration
of Stephanie St. Clair

in the early 1930s,
the longtime battle

between Schultz
and the Madam of Harlem ended.

With his formidable rival
behind bars,

Dutch now had complete control
of the Harlem numbers racket.

- And to the astonishment
of his fellow gangsters,

he starts makingan
unbelievable amount of money.

There's one estimate
that put his annual take

at 10 to 12 million dollars...

Just from numbers.

And this is 1930s figures,
so you have to multiply that

by about 8
to get a modern equivalent.

And this really put
Schultz on the map.

This put him into
the criminal stratosphere.

- Despite his notoriety

and immense influence
as a kingpin mobster

on the streets of New York City,

Dutch Schultz
was entirely unaware

of the powerful government
forces gathering against him.

- In the early 1930s,
Dutch Schultz

acquired his
most formidable adversary.

And, interestingly enough,
it wasn't a fellow gangster.

It was a straight-shooting
lawyer named Thomas Dewey.

- Dewey had it up to here
with him.

See, because...

The Dutch wanted power.

When he found out
that Dewey was after him

and wanted to send him away
and all that,

that's when
the fireworks started.

- From the beginning, Dewey faced
an almost hopeless job...

Clearing out
gangsters and racketeers

whose hold upon the city
had been tightening

thorough years of Tammany rule.

- Mr. Dewey, you have been
given the most difficult task,

but the opportunity of helping
the people of this city.

- Thomas Dewey
was born in Michigan,

went to Columbia Law School,

and was very much
a straight arrow,

very hardworking man,

very determined
to crush organized crime,

and set his sights
on Dutch Schultz.

- And The Dutch says, "Look."

You tell Dewey
I'm running this."

- Alright...
- Then Dewey...

- Listen to what he has to say.
- Quiet.

And The Dutch had to find a way
to get rid of Dewey,

because he's the one
that's gonna...

Yeah. Yeah.
And that's how it started.

- Schultz actually went through
two different tax trials.

First trial
is in Syracuse, New York,

in early 1935.

And lo and behold,

no one really wants
to testify against him.

Go figure.

So, all these witnesses
don't testify,

the jury says
they can't reach a verdict.

♪♪

- Dutch's first trial
ended in a hung jury,

but a retrial
was promptly ordered

to be held within three months.

As the threat of jail time
crept ever closer,

the need for Dutch to protect
his riches became urgent.

Bruce Alterman believes

Schultz struck a deal
with Willie Sutton,

the most notorious jewel thief
in America,

buying scores of stolen diamonds

to stash within the confines
of his steel box.

♪♪

- Well, we're on 47th Street
in New York City,

home of
Mitch Egenberg's Eligere,

and he's an expert
in setting diamonds

and precious jewels
into settings.

And we're gonna find out
what the diamonds looked like

and what potentially could be in
Dutch Schultz's treasure chest.

- I would hope
he was smart enough

to disassemble all the jewelry,

'cause once you take the diamond
out of the jewelry,

it's a non-traceable stone.

Alright. So, here were looking
at an old mitered stone,

and this stone is $50,000,
this stone is $80,000.

There's $130,000 here.

- Those are from the '30s?
- That's what I'm looking for.

- These are all from
the '20s and the '30s.

- We know that there were
Rosenthal diamonds

that were heisted by famous
jewel thief Willie Sutton

and fenced through
Dutch Schultz.

And he dealt primarily
with jewels, you know,

because jewels were light.

They were, uh,
much lighter than gold.

- Easy to move around.
- Easy to move around.

Pretty much untraceable
at the time, and now.

If Willie said that he heisted
$150,000 of diamonds

in just one heist,

what are they
gonna be worth today?

- A value of $150,000 in the '30s

today could easily be worth

anywhere from
a million and a half

to two and a half
million dollars.

These stones, if they exist,

I hope I'm the guy
that finds them.

- Well, there is a 1927 house
on Klein Island

out in the middle
of Seneca River.

Let's check out that 1927 house
before it collapses.

- During Prohibition, various
islands in Upstate New York

were used by gangsters
to conduct

their illicit activities
in complete secrecy.

Ross believes Klein Island
near Syracuse

may have been one
of these hideouts for Schultz.

- Look at that.

1927. Now ready
to collapse in on itself.

What we need to do
is find a safe way,

with the permission
of the owner,

to explore
the inside of the place

to see whether there's any sign
of life in the '30s here.

- Uh, that doesn't look too safe.
- Yeah, no.

- Are you sure you want
to go inside inside?

- It's amazing
that it's still standing.

- Eh, I wouldn't
really call it standing.

- Way too dangerous to go in.

- Yeah, that does look
a little dicey.

- But there must be spots that...

If we use a GoPro with a flash,
it'll illuminate it.

- Well, what did Dutch use
his island hideaways for?

- Well, what they would do

is they'd have the privacy
to drink, which was illegal,

gamble, which was illegal, um...

- Certainly knew how to have fun.

- And this is
the only island around,

and this was the only house
on the island.

I've tried to get in touch
with the owner, um,

who built it in 1927,

but he hasn't gotten back to me.

He's pretty reclusive.

- Hey!
- Gentlemen! How you doing?

- Welcome to Foxfire!
- Sirs!

- Hey. How you doing?
- Excellent.

- Bruce and Tim share the details
of the photograph

with Steve and Ryan.

- Now, if you look
at this picture,

we have a 1935 vehicle
next to Stony Clove Creek.

Nobody's gonna bring a 300-pound
steel box up a steep mountain.

- No.
- They're going to take

a hand truck and wheel it in
a few hundred feet.

It's all level.
And that's the location.

And, you know, if we're
gonna have a shot at it,

there's just no way we want
other people around there.

- Mum's the word.
- Mum's the word for sure.

- When you see that photo,
like, me inside,

I'm just like...
I want to, like, target

exactly where that photo
was taken and start there.

That's where I want to go.

- I think you guys need me
as much as I need you.

- Yeah, for sure.
- You need my information.

I need your
treasure-hunting abilities.

- Bruce is intent on convincing
Steve and Ryan

to join forces with him.

They must put
their current work on hold

to pursue the lead
discovered in the photo album.

- Like, what do you think, Ryan?
- Yeah, I think we should

not spend any more time
at those other locations.

- Yeah, we don't want to waste
any time, if you, like...

You've got me convinced.

- And then
you'll get the G30 jet.

You'll get the Ferrari.

And I want the high-rise condo
above

the Russian guy.

[ Laughter ]

On the 101st floor
in New York City.

- Okay. Sounds good to me.
- Okay? Then we'll have a party.

- Sure.

♪♪

So, someone told us about a guy.
His name's Phil.

He's a local in the area,
and I think that he'll be able

to give us some information,

and I really want
to talk to this guy.

- Hey. How you doing?
- I'm alright.

- Are you Phil?
- Yes, I am.

- Beautiful. You're the man
we want to talk to.

- Okay.
- This is Ryan.

- Hey, Ryan.
- Great to meet you.

- Pleased to meet you.

- Could this have been
a bootlegger road?

- I was told by an old-timer
who's since passed

that this road used to be open

and that the reason
the road was closed

was because of bootlegging.

So they decided
to cease to maintain it

because, um, they wanted
to discourage the bootlegging.

So your, uh, area of interest

could well be
just that little bit

of narrow, overgrown
abandoned road.

- And it's just up here?
- Yeah. If you...

As you're going up
over that ridge,

it's either on this side...

I think it's on this side,
about where that pole is.

♪♪

- We talked to the old man Phil,

and the road leading in here,
he told us the stories

and how the hotel
and the railroad

and the rum-running
all was going through here.

So it just seems like an
obvious spot for us to detect.

- Because the jury couldn't reach
a verdict in Syracuse,

that means
a second trial is held.

The second trial is scheduled
for Malone, New York,

which is a small little town
in rural New York.

And Schultz,
for once in his life,

you know,
puts on a charm offensive.

- He went up to Malone
a week before the trial

and paid for everyone's dinner,

paid for everyone's debts,
the whole town.

So when they finally selected
a jury pool,

of course, it was
all his friends already.

For a week. I mean, if a guy's
gonna pay off your car,

if a guy's gonna
give you a gold coin,

if a guy's gonna buy
the whole restaurant dinner,

you're not gonna
call him guilty.

You're gonna call him a hero.

- And guess what.
- The Malone jury acquits him.

The judge is just, you know,
completely beside himself

and basically just, you know,
rants and raves.

♪♪

And, meanwhile,
in New York City,

Thomas Dewey
is still on the case.

- Angered by Schultz's acquittal,

Dewey steps up his attack
on the gangster.

- Dutch Schultz really starts
to fixate on Thomas Dewey.

Schultz becomes very obsessive
about this one guy,

this one prosecutor
going after him.

- Dewey had Dutch
up against the legal ropes,

likely facing years in prison.

[ Gavel banging ]

- So Schultz decides,
you know, to go on the lam.

He's hiding in Connecticut
for a while,

trying to keep
a lot of things together.

- So, in 1935,

when I hid The Dutch,
it was in August.

I hid him
in the Stratfield Hotel.

I said, "Look, when you call",

ask for Tom White
at the Stratfield Hotel.

"Then I'll tell you
how to get here."

So when The Dutch got there
with all his hoods,

I made sure that he wound up
with the suite,

the Citizen Suite.

It extends from Main Street
to Chapel Street.

A whole block.

Six big rooms, he had.

- As the pressure mounts,

Dutch hatches a plan
to get rid of Dewey for good.

And true to the gangster code,

he seeks permission from his
mobster peers at the Syndicate.

- Then they had a meeting.

That when they found out
that The Dutch

wanted to wipe out Dewey,

Lucky says "No."

You know, if you wipe out Dewey,

we all could go drop our pants.

We would be all out of business

because, as you know,
he's a big man.

And the federals and everybody
is working for him.

"He will wipe out
all our places."

- And that's when Dutch Schultz
supposedly went off the handle

at the meeting...
Which was never done.

They were very cordial men.

Lucky Luciano
had a very nice tailored suit.

They all sat down very nicely.

Except Dutch Schultz
blew up, exploded,

turned over a table,
and started screaming at them,

which really went
against their grain,

'cause they didn't like
Dutch Schultz anyway.

No one liked Dutch Schultz.

He was a cheapskate, he was
a braggart, and he was a bully.

And he said to them,
"I don't need the Syndicate"

to carry out this hit.

"I'll do it myself."

- That's when The Dutch got hot.

He says, "I'll kill him myself."

That's when they went after him.

They wiped The Dutch.
They get rid of him.

Because this guy is...
Oh, you know... If he got...

So, he killed
The Dutch himself...

The Dutch killed Dewey himself.

Whew!

- And that's when, later,

they had a secret meeting
without him.

Before him,
they were the Big Eight.

Then the Big Seven met and said,

"Dutch Schultz cannot survive.
We need to assassinate him."

- He had a place,
uh, in New Jersey

called The Palace Chop House.

In the back, he had his office.

- So, he sets up operations,

and he will meet there for meals

and to go over business
with his cronies.

So, on the night
of October 23, 1935,

there's four men at the back
table in the Palace Chop House.

All of a sudden,
the Palace Chop House proprietor

notices these two men
come charging in.

- We're talking about
Charles "The Bug" Workman

and Mendy Weiss,

two killers from
Murder, Incorporated.

- And they told the bartender,
"Quiet."

You know, the bartender
knew what the deal was.

So when they went and they seen

that The Dutch
wasn't at the table...

- Workman goes into the washroom,

sees a guy standing there,
and shoots him.

- He shoots Dutch Schultzin
the torso with rusty bullets,

which he purposely had rusted.

In case he did not hit
a vital organ,

the rust from the bullet
would kill his victim.

- Both men at this point
start spraying bullets

at the three remaining guys
at the table.

- Dutch then stumbles out of the
bathroom, bleeding profusely,

and his head was on the table
in that famous photo.

- Schultz is taken
to the hospital,

and he starts babbling.

He's developing peritonitis,

and police think

this is a golden opportunity.

They think he might reveal

some mob secrets.

So they install a stenographer
by his bed

to take down everything
that Schultz says.

Unfortunately,
most of what Schultz says

is a bizarre stream
of consciousness,

this rambling, weird,
sort of hallucinatory

sort of monologue.

And he just existed like this
for a couple of days,

just rambling
and babbling and babbling.

♪♪

- Armed with fresh insight
from the old photograph

and know-how from locals,

Steve and Ryan
bring their search

to a creek bed
running through the Catskills.

- Like, if you see
any old trees...

Like, do around the bases of
anyold trees or anything like that.

You can tell this is...
Whole area is old.

[ Detector beeping ]

[ Detector pinging ]

I got a nice signal here.

Guaranteed
it's a freaking pull-tab.

[ Rapid beeping ]

♪♪

Holy cow. You're not gonna
believe what I just saw!

- Oh, my God!
- What?

♪♪

- Is that what I think it is?

- It's a coin.
- This is unbelievable.

- No one's gonna believe this.

♪♪

- That's a coin.
- That's a gold coin.

- That's a gold coin.
- Oh, my God!

Oh, my God!

- Oh, my...

- Here.
- Take it, take it, take it.

♪♪

- Is it?
- It's a gold coin. 1903.

- Is there a possibility
that somehow or another

that... I don't know...

The fricking thing was somewhere
in here and it opened?

And these things would have
went down with that flood?

- Is that possible?
- Yeah, for sure.

Maybe he's buried it
close to the edge of the river?

And just from erosion
it smashed it open.

- Ryan, look at this thing.
- Look at that fricking coin!

- It's unbelievable.
- Unbelievable.

Who would've thought?

- I don't know.
- I'm still shaking. I'm still...

I think I actually am...

I got some heart palpitations,
actually.

So I gotta calm down
a little bit.

- The coin
Steve and Ryan discovered

is known as
a Liberty Head Gold Eagle,

a $10 coin used in America
throughout the Prohibition era.

♪♪

Dutch Schultz
died from his injuries

on October 24, 1935,

less than 24 hours
after being gunned down

at The Palace Chop House
by Syndicate assassins.

With the death of Schultz,
Stanley Grauso quit the Mob

and struck out on his own,
working as a loan shark

from the Stratfield Hotel
in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

- When he got killed,
they knew who I was.

So I couldn't move.

And I quit. And I quit.

I quit,
and I'm a family man again.

[ Laughs ]

Maybe a few places I played
cards or something like that.

And then...

That's where I had trouble
with my wife... divorce.

'Cause I...

She was afraid that
something would happen to me.

She didn't want to get involved.

So she said,
"You either quit..."

She ripped down
all the telephones.

"Either you quit,
or I'm divorcing you."

"Go ahead. Go divorce.
I'm enjoying myself."

[ Laughter ]

♪♪

- Weekend warriors Rob and Erika

endured thorns
and scorching heat

in pursuit
of Schultz's treasure,

but for now,
luck has evaded them.

- Yeah.
- A site this big,

it's gonna be really difficult.

It's gonna take a lot of people
and a lot of equipment

to come through such a big place
and narrow down a

2-foot-by-3-foot-by-18-inch-tall
box.

- Yeah. Take a lot of people
and a lot of digging.

- Father-daughter duo
Ross and Grace

failed to make any big finds,

but they remain confident
their research

will one day lead them
to Dutch's mother lode.

- With the 80, 90 years passing,

there is an urgency to...
To try and unearth our past.

- The gold coin
is a career-altering find.

Steve and Ryan hope
it brings them one step closer

to the legendary treasure of
New York mobster Dutch Schultz.

♪♪

- We know it...
- It's not the treasure.

We know there's...
There's way more to be found,

but at least
we're in the right area.

It's kind of like a breadcrumb.

It's leading us down a trail
to possibly the big hit.

- We not only
need to search this area,

but we have to do it fast
before other people find out.

So, yeah, the hunt's on.