FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Four men were held without bond Friday on charges they ruined some of the state's oldest Indian archaeological sites in a 12-year quest for gold and buried treasure.
'We had a group of individuals who have gold fever going out and destroying state historical and archaeological sites,' said Joseph Subic, an investigator with the state Department of Natural Resources.
Lee County prosecutors filed racketeering and theft charges against the four men, accused of destructive treasure hunting through protected Indian mounds and archaeological sites along Florida's West Coast.
L. Frank Hudson, 74, of St. Petersburg; Peter A. Smitt, 39, of Pinellas Park; Ronald A. Webb, 43, of Largo; and Donald P. Williams, 59, of Fort Myers, were arrested Tuesday at their homes and businesses by deputies.
They were being held without bond in the Lee County Jail, Subic said.
Although the hunt had been going on for at least 12 years, officials said the men never found gold or treasure.
As many as 15 more people may have been involved in at least 57 illegal excavations at seven state and federally protected sites, Subic said. More arrests are expected.
Subic said the men scoured state and federal lands for the gold of Jose Gaspar with bulldozers, backhoes, dredging equipment and dynamite.
'Folklore has it that Gaspar gold is buried somewhere around Charlotte Harbor,' said Brent Weisman, an archaeologist with the Florida Division of Historical Resources. 'Only thing is he's a fictional character that never existed. It should be clear to everyone now it's fictional.'
Tampa's annual Gasparilla festival is based on the fictional pirate's invasion of the city.
The treasure hunts were conducted on Big Mound Key and Hog Island, state-owned archaeological sites in Charlotte County; Gallagher Key and Cashes Mound, federally owned archaeological sites in Charlotte; Cayo Costa State Park in Lee County; Cockroach Island, a state-owned archaeological site near the Port of Tampa in Hillsborough County, and state-owned Ross Island, offWeedon Island in Tampa Bay near northeast St. Petersburg, according to the indictment.
The most substantial damage was done at Big Mound Key where, in 1980, a bulldozer cut a 200-foot long path 20 feet wide and 25 feet deep, Weisman said. About 7,000 cubic yards of a shell mound was destroyed.
Weisman said that's 1,000 times more than archaeologists have excavated in all of Southwest Florida in the past 10 years.
'It's a tragic destruction of a legacy of an extinct people, ancestors of the Caloosa Indians,' Weisman said. 'That's the only legacy they left for us.'
The treasure hunts were financed by investors, most of whom live in Florida, Subic said.
Investigators would not say how much money the men collected, but Subic said one investor sank about $60,000 into the search over a 10- year period.
Most of the money was solicited through a monthly newsletter called 'Treasure Trove,' published by Hudson, Subic said.
