Adventurer who found Forest Fenn treasure worth over $1m in Wyoming reveals identity

The anonymous seeker who found the Forest Fenn treasure in June, a trove of gold and other valuables worth over a million dollars buried in the Rocky Mountains, has revealed his identity.

His name is Jack Stuef, and he’s a medical student and Michigan native. 

He said on Medium he had initially wanted to remain anonymous, but the intense litigation and public speculation that has surrounded the treasure hunt forced his hand.

“For the past six months, I have remained anonymous, not because I have anything to hide, but because Forrest and his family endured stalkers, death threats, home invasions, frivolous lawsuits, and a potential kidnapping — all at the hands of people with delusions related to his treasure,” he wrote on Monday.  “I don’t want those things to happen to me and my family.”

Mr Fenn’s family confirmed to Outside magazine that Mr Stuef found the treasure. 

After two years of searching, Mr Stuef said he found the jewels in the Wyoming and now owns the treasure chest that drove so many people to such desperate lengths to find it. Mr Fenn, an antiquities dealer and author from New Mexico, died of natural causes at age 90 in September.

The hunt has provoked intense competition between adventurers around the country to stake their claim. Multiple people have filed lawsuits against Mr Fenn, before and after the chest was found, claiming the treasure belonged to them. 

One suit, filed after the June announcement by a Chicago real estate attorney named Barbara Andersen in federal court in New Mexico, named the then-anonymous finder of the treasure. It claimed he’d stolen her solution to Mr Fenn’s riddle revealing the treasure’s location. Mr Andersen alleges the solution was nabbed when her texts and emails were hacked. Mr Stuef denies he did this and says he’s never met or heard of her. 

Mr Stuef’s name was likely to surface in court soon, so he said he moved to preempt more speculation and go public. 

“The U.S. District Court for New Mexico has ruled that Forrest’s estate must provide some of my personal information to a woman I do not know and with whom I have never communicated who has brought a meritless lawsuit against me,” Mr Stuef argued in his blog post. “This would make my name a matter of public record, so I chose to come forward today.”

When the chest was found, its basic location and the name of the finder were both initially kept secret, prompting some to speculate Mr Fenn himself had ended the search, or the process had been otherwise rigged. 

Mr Stuef noted that since finding the treasure, he’s moved to a more secure building with guards and multiple layers of security.

“My family and I have prepared for the potentiality of this day," he said.

After he found the treasure, Mr Stuef brought it to New Mexico to show Mr Fenn before he died, then stashed it in a secure vault where it will wait until he sells it, hopefully to a party he and Mr Fenn discussed who might be able to display it to other treasure seekers. 

Now that he’s come forward, Mr Stuef could face additional legal action, and has said he found the treasure fair and square and would take appropriate legal action towards those who sought to claim otherwise. 

Despite coming forward with his name, Mr Stuef says he’ll never reveal how he found it though. 

The allure of the treasure was so great, and its potential location so remote, that five people have died while searching for it. 

Mr Stuef says part of his reason for breaking the silence is to stop anyone from taking any further risky actions to locate the haul, and to protect the natural features of the site from overuse. 

Mr Fenn, a wealthy art dealer and lifelong lover of adventure stories, conceived of the treasure hunt decades ago when he was diagnosed with kidney cancer. He originally planned to be buried with the stash of priceless artifacts. 

Once he recovered, he decided to bury his horde, which included 265 gold coins, hundreds of gold nuggets, hundreds of rubies, eight emeralds, two Ceylon sapphires, many diamonds, two ancient Chinese jade carvings, and pre-Columbian gold bracelets, while he was still alive. 

An estimated 65,000 people looked for the treasure before it was found.