A PIRATE HOARD

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 270, 9 July 1932, Page 3

A PIRATE HOARD

MILLIONS HIDDEN SEARCHERS AFTER TREASURE PREPARING ANOTHER EXPEDITION. A NEW LOCATION CHOSEN. The story of the huried pirate hoard at Cocos Island, off South America, has heen given a new turn hy the suggestion that the treasure was actually dug up and removed to islands north of Australia and to the „mainland itself. A search party is setting out shortly in the hope of locating the hiding places. From the time that the gold was wrested from the Aztec temples by the Spanish conquistadors four hun-. dred years ago, converted into doubloons and magnifioent ornaments and images for the famed cath'edral of Lima, later to be placed on a ship and sent out of the country for safety and captured by pirates, the Hstory of this huried treasure on Cocos Island has heen glaxiiorous and grim. It has long been believed that not one, but several, great caches of looted gold from Peru were buried by pirates on Cocos Island, totalling far more than £12,000,000 in valuc. ■ - Many expedit'ons have gone there, notably the one led hy Sir Malcolm . Campbell. The British speed king went to Cocos Island in 1903, and intended going again. Sir Malcolmn Campbell has been in ■ communication with a Sydney man, Mr. Charles Crocker, of . Cremorne,, who believed he'held the key to the pirate hoard of gold supposed once to have been buried on Cocos Island. Campbell was interested, and negotiations were still progressi'ng -between him and Mr. Crocker when Colonel Leckie's finding of the £12,000,000 treasure was reported the other day. Ex-Pirate in Sydney. Mr. Crocker holds in trust maps which, he says, were brought to Australia hy an ex-member of the notorious pirate Bonita Bonito's erew, who came, in the last years of his life, to Sydney. But the maps do not show the treasure as being on Cocos Island, off the central American coast. They indicate that it was dug up again, brought aeross the Pacific, and buried in 16 different places — some in the Dutch East Indies, two in New Guinea, and several on the northern coast of Australia. That was the ex-pirate's story, a syndicate of Sydney men, soine of them well known citzens, equip>ped an expedition which went to an island in the Dutch East Indies two years ago. - There a search' was made, vainly, for buried gold believed to have been transferred from Cocos Island This deposit was reckoned more easily accessibl'e than those in iicated on the northern coast of Australia. in unsettled regions. Several men interested in this alleged buried treasure in Australia have been interviewed by The Sunday Sun. They are unwilling to speak, for publication, on exact locations, according to the maps, and information they possess, not wishing to give away secrets to anyone who likes to look for the gold they steadfastly believe may be found there. "Going After It." "We are going after it ourselves," one of them stated. "Our plans are now maturing, and it will not be long before an expedition will be ready to go north. We shall be well equipped. We intend doing the job properly — and we think, rightly or wrongly, that we shall come baek rich men." Maps on Canvas. Careful investigation is at present being given to the aspect of the law of Treasure Trove whereby the Government is said to be able to claim a large proportion of any treasure found in the country. The maps left hy the ex-pirate who died in Sydney were drawn on square pi'eces of sail canvas and carefully detailed. They indicate landmarks known to exist. They may be fabrications — though the holders are convinced ' they are not — but they certainly are j genuinely romantic in appearance.