Like a mammoth steppingstone on the waterway path from New Guinea to Tokyo, lies the big, rich island of Mindanao. Site of a Japanese World War II submarine base, Cateel Bay lies north of the old Japanese stronghold of Davao, also known as Little Tokyo, and the large Gulf of Davao on the southern part of the island.
The Japanese abandoned their base due to heavy allied bombing, but not before they had buried a vast fortune in gold on the low-lying peninsula. Due to the terrain, the Japanese were unable to bury the cache in one location or very deep in an elaborate tunnel system, as they had done in many other parts of the island. Instead, they selected 30 shallow sites where they placed 2 to 3 tons of gold at each. They then marked the area very carefully, to ensure that they could recover the gold when they returned.
The Cateel Bay area was brought to our attention in 1995 when the son of a Japanese admiral who was on Kodama's staff (Kodama was in charge of burying the treasure) showed us the area and told us about the gold that was buried there.
After carefully inspecting the site, we located and followed the markers that identified each of the 30 locations where gold is buried. (We had already spent 5 years learning how to read the markers) The site was marked just as we were told it would be. We also used ground-penetrating radar to verify each deposit site. We then obtained a contract from the landowner to recover the gold. Since then we have cultivated relationships with certain important people in the area, and established a positive environment in order to excavate the area and make the recovery.
