Tommy Gregory Thompson

Tommy Gregory Thompson (born April 15, 1952) is an American treasure hunter known for his leading role in the 1988 discovery of the wreck of the SS Central America, a gold-laden ship which had sunk off the coast of North Carolina in 1857. When he was sued in 2005 by investors who had financed the treasure hunt, he failed to appear in court and eventually became a fugitive. Arrested in 2015, he spent over 10 years in prison for refusing to disclose the location of the remaining gold.

He is the author of a book about the discovery, America's Lost Treasure, published in 1998,

Recovery expedition

Around 1983, Thompson was an oceanic engineer at Battelle Memorial Institute and managed to convince a group of investors to put up $12.7 million to search for the wreck of the SS Central America.

In 2000, Thompson sold gold recovered from the Central America for $52 million. By 2005, several investors sued him, claiming that they hadn't been paid. When he did not appear in court in 2013, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio issued an arrest warrant for Thompson for civil contempt for his failure to appear as directed. In 2014, the same court issued an additional arrest warrant for Thompson for criminal contempt. The investigation was assigned to Deputy United States Marshal Mark Stroh of the Southern District of Ohio. Thompson was a fugitive until U.S. Marshals arrested him in 2015 at a West Palm Beach, Florida hotel, together with his girlfriend, fellow fugitive Alison Louise Antekeier.

In April 2015, Thompson pleaded guilty for failure to appear for an earlier case and was sentenced to two years in jail and a fine of $250,000. The plea bargain included a requirement for Thompson to answer questions about the whereabouts of 500 gold coins, which he has refused to do, claiming he suffers from short-term memory loss and has forgotten their location. On 28 November 2018, a jury awarded investors $19.4 million in compensatory damages: $3.2 million to the Dispatch Printing Company (which had put up $1 million of a total of $22 million invested) and $16.2 million to the court-appointed receiver of the other investors.

On March 4, 2026, Thompson was released from prison after serving more than 10 years.