[imagesource: AP Photo/Abe Fox]

You’re looking at Arthur Simon Flegenheimer, although the notorious crime boss is better known as Dutch Schultz.

During the US Prohibition years, Schultz grew in both wealth and power, forcing bars to purchase his beer or face the wrath of his gang members.

One of the most famous stories involving Schultz saw a bar owner who refused to buy his goods hung by his thumbs, with a rag dipped in a gonorrhoea sore placed over his eyes, which eventually blinded the man.

You can see why he was feared.

Once the Prohibition ended, he switched his attention to other rackets, but law enforcement was circling.

The New York Post reports:

…NY prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey (later to be governor and a failed presidential candidate) vowed to stop his wrongdoings. In the wake of fellow gangster Al Capone being found guilty of income tax evasion, Dewey said that Dutch would be imprisoned by similar means.

According to a new documentary, “Secrets of the Dead: Gangster’s Gold,” it is believed that Schultz — a miser who, said Hendley, “looked like an unemployed clerk” — prepared for his takedown by burying a princely sum of cash, bonds and diamonds in the Catskills.

To this day, it’s never been found.

The Catskills are located in southeastern New York State.

On October 23, 1935, Schultz was gunned down in Newark, New Jersey, by hitmen Charles “The Bug” Workman and Emmanuel “Mendy” Weiss.

According to PBS, Schultz didn’t trust banks to keep his wealth safe, which is one of the reasons he decided to bury a bounty:

 Items believed to be in the strong box include diamonds, gold coins, gold-backed $1,000-dollar bills and uncashed World War I Liberty Bonds…

With the help of Ground Penetrating Radar, satellite mapping and newly uncovered photographs, these treasure hunters track down secret passages and the treasure’s possible location.

Treasure hunting’s really changed, man.

Whilst estimates on how much the bounty would be worth today vary wildly (some say it may ‘only’ be worth $50 million), the Post settled on $150 million.

Let’s see the trailer for Gangster’s Gold:

The two Canadian treasure hunters, Steve Zazulyk and Ryan Fazekas, believe that they are on the cusp of striking it rich, due in part to what they’ve been told by Bruce Alterman, a private investigator who lives in the area.

Alterman claims that he had a family member who told him stories about Schultz, and points to a single photo, “a fairly innocuous shot of a wooded area alongside Stoney Clove Creek, in Phoenicia, with a car parked nearby”, as a major clue.

Fazekas agrees:

“People [in the 1930s] didn’t take scenery photos and waste their film,” he said. “And this is not scenic; it had to mean something.”

Intimating in the documentary that it is a shot of the burial spot, snapped for future reference, he added, “My contention is that they transported the heavy steel box and buried it alongside Stoney Clove Creek.”

So far, the Canadian due have only found two gold coins in the area, but they believe that they are within a football field of locating the bounty.

I’m not sure bringing a TV crew along for the ride was a shrewd move, but good luck, chaps.

[sources:nypost&pbs]