NARRATOR: This treasure
hunter found the lost
gold of World War II,
and this greedy dictator
stole it from him.
Throughout World War II, the
Japanese military amassed
a fortune in looted gold.
A Japanese general,
Tomoyuki Yamashita,
hid the treasure throughout the
Philippines in a complex system
of underground tunnels.
The commission finds you
guilty as charged and sentences
you to death by hanging.
NARRATOR: Yamashita was
executed for war crimes in 1946
and took the location of
the immense bounty with him.
Some claimed the CIA found it.
Others insisted it
was still out there.
Rogelio Roxas, a former
Filipino soldier,
dedicated his life to
finding the treasure.
And in 1971, he
allegedly succeeded.
Roxas said he found a tunnel
full of World War II era
rifles, bayonets,
radios, and a skeleton
wearing a Japanese army uniform.
He also found a 10 foot
thick concrete wall.
He blasted through
it and uncovered
a 2000-pound solid
gold statue of Buddha
surrounded by crates of gold
bars worth an untold amount.
And it was still only a fraction
of what Yamashita had hidden.
Ferdinand Marcos, the
wealth-crazed dictator
of the Philippines,
learned of the discovery.
When Roxas returned
with the treasure,
Marcos ordered his men
to raid Roxas's home,
where part of the
treasure was hidden.
They stole the
Buddha, the gold bars,
even the piggy bank
of Roxas's children.
Roxas was later
beaten and tortured
for the locations of
the remaining treasure
but divulged nothing.
Marcos and his wife Imelda
fled to Hawaii in 1986.
In 1988, Roxas sued the former
dictator over the stolen
treasure in Hawaiian court.
Before he was
supposed to testify,
Roxas died under
what many considered
suspicious circumstances.
But the trial went on.
In 1992, Imelda Marcos admitted
much of her husband's wealth
was built on Yamashita's gold.
And in 1996, a jury awarded
the Rogelio Roxas estate
and his investors $22
billion, the largest award in
judicial history at the time.
The court record clearly
stated that Roxas
found a portion of
the Yamashita treasure
and that Marcos stole it.
To this day, treasure
hunters are still
risking their lives
to find the rest
of World War II's lost gold.
A piece of a grenade.
General Yamashita's trying
to take us out of here.
