Insurers paid for the SS Central America's gold in 1857 and claimed it again when it was found in 1988; the finder spent ten years jailed over 500 missing coins

On 12 September 1857 the steamship Central America sank in a hurricane with $1,219,189 in California gold, 1857 value. About 425 people died and 153 were rescued. Her loss contributed to the Panic of 1857. Underwriters paid the gold claims in 1857 and 1858. In 1988 Tommy Thompson's Columbus-America Discovery Group found the wreck about 8,000 feet down. In 1990 a district court ruled the insurers had abandoned the gold and gave all of it to the finders. In 1992 the Fourth Circuit reversed: the underwriters had not abandoned their interest, and salvage law applied. In 1996, 92% went to the discovery team and the rest to 39 insurers. In 2005, 161 investors sued Thompson, alleging he withheld proceeds of about $50 million in gold sales. In 2012 he missed a court hearing and disappeared. US marshals arrested him in 2015 at a Florida hotel where he lived under another name with his girlfriend. He pleaded guilty to failing to appear. He was jailed for civil contempt from December 2015 for refusing to reveal where about 500 gold coins made from the wreck's gold had gone, at $1,000 a day. He said only that they were in a trust in Belize. In 2018 a jury awarded the investors $19.4 million. In February 2025 a judge ended the civil contempt. Thompson then served his criminal sentence and was released on 4 March 2026, aged 73. The coins have not been found.