Yamashita Treasure
An elusive treasure that plagues an entire family. Is it a gift or a curse? Listen to the story above and read the facts below.
Read the Podcast Transcript
General Yamashita assessing battle plans in 1945. Photo courtesy of Filipinas Heritage Library.
The most comprehensive story that I found online was an article on Unredacted, The Legend of Golden Lily: Yamashita’s Gold.
An illegally dug hole in a nature preserve in Tanay, Rizal suspected as one of the location of a Yamashita treasure.
Until today, there are still self-proclaimed treasure hunters dedicated to finding the Yamashita Treasure. Some of them are registered treasure hunters while most are doing it illegally. There are, of course, more benefits to doing it illegally since you don’t need to share 40% of your finds with the government. There are also numerous foreign treasure hunters that visit the Philippines intending to discover one of the many purported Yamashita treasures scattered around the Philippines. Some are doing it to scam other potential investors by approaching people by showing off a few gold bars and a map of their find. They also approach landowners with allegedly deciphered Japanese plans with treasure location to get them to secure funds for the dig. Those funds go directly to the pockets of the said treasure hunter. There are countless stories like these where people get scammed over the promise of securing Yamashita Treasure until they believed that it’s either impossible to obtain the treasure due to the complexity of the Japanese trappings or they plainly got scammed out of the ruse. And no one in their right mind would report them to authorities for fear of becoming a laughing stock of the community. As of now, there is no proven evidence that Yamashita Treasure exists besides Rogelio Roxas and his Golden Lily that was supposedly stolen by Ferdinand Marcos. There is also a theory that the Americans have already secured all of the treasure after the war by collaborating with the surrendering Japanese Imperial Army.
There’s a book that details how America supposedly recovered all of Yamashita’s gold after the war. Gold Warriors: America’s Secret Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold.
Similar Stories
The story recounted on the podcast have different versions. Either attesting to the power of word-of-mouth or there is truth to the story. In Tarlac, a stash of Yamashita treasure was hidden in a local family’s basement. The Japanese then held up local kids and executed them in the basement. They were using the kids as guardians of the treasure. Stories began to emerge that young kids roam around the area and scare anyone that dares unearth the Yamashita treasure. In other eyewitness account and documents, Japanese soldiers were tasked to hide the Yamashita treasure in caves. Officials would blast the openings entrapping any Japanese soldiers inside with the treasure.
If you want to find out more, Please visit your local library. The Filipinas Heritage Library is also a good resource with numerous books on the subject.