The Mystery Of Leon Trabuco's Lost Gold
In 1933, a meeting among Mexican businessmen was held in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Those present included international banker Rafael Borega; ranchers Ricardo Artega and Carlos Sepulveda; and millionaire Leon Trabuco. They discussed a plan concocted by economics professor Guzman Morada about how the group can make a large profit from gold. According to Morada, per The Meister Chronicles, the United States was about to set a $10 increase on the price of gold, which at that time was at $20.67 per ounce.
The plan was to acquire gold in Mexico and transport the goods to the United States to sell when the price went up. The men pooled their resources together and purchased gold from small-scale gold miners in Mexico. However, the plan was a big risk, as they faced prison time if they get caught smuggling gold, but it was a risk they were willing to take. It is said that in total, Trabuco and the other men were able to come up with 16 tons of gold that were cast into ingots (via Unsolved). Trabuco hired a pilot named Red Moiser to transport the gold to a location in Farmington, New Mexico. Several trips had to be done to transport all the gold, and the final shipment happened on July 14, 1933. It was only Trabuco who knew the exact location of where the gold was buried.
The Gold Reserve Act spoiled the plan
According to Unsolved, Leon Trabuco's group would have made about $7 million in profit when the gold price soared. However, they decided not to sell yet, as they wanted to wait for the price to increase further to be able to get more profit. That was a bad decision, though.
In January 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Gold Reserve Act, which stated that all gold in the U.S. was to be transferred to the U.S. Treasury, thus making it illegal to privately own gold and sell them for profit. Trabuco and his co-conspirators were left with 16 tons of buried gold that they couldn't profit from. Over the years, the three men who were part of the deal died, and only Trabuco was left. In 1946, an investigation into his smuggling activities began, and he was found to have violated the Gold Reserve Act. However, per The Meister Chronicles, he was given the option to reveal the location of the gold in exchange for getting the chance to sue for the rightful ownership of the gold. Trabuco refused the deal and fled to Spain. It's unknown when exactly he died, but the location of the gold was never revealed. Throughout the years, many have attempted to find the gold, but no one has been successful to this day.