On Wednesday night’s riveting no miss episode of Expedition Unknown, an honest-to-gosh treasure hunt is underfoot with show star Josh Gates. A fierce pirate of yore has stashed a huge Portuguese treasure ship of loot somewhere in the Indian Ocean islands of Seychelles. The fortune is estimated to be worth a billion or more in today’s economy.
The pirate, nicknamed “The Buzzard,” left a cryptogram with clues but the treasure still is unclaimed.
Now Josh Gates takes on the Indian Ocean’s punishing waters as he chases the lost treasure of Olivier Levasseur, AKA “The Buzzard,” rumored to be worth more than a billion dollars.
What happens on Expedition Unknown?
Josh explores with Emmanuel Mezino and Tyrone Leech who accompanies him in our exclusive clip in the boat, as Josh Gates closes in on a cryptogram’s clues and masonic markers that were left as guides to find the lost fortune.
Emmanuel Mezino says to Josh: “I’ve invested a small fortune in search of this big fortune.”
Indeed, as the hunt for such an elusive treasure requires time, effort, fuel and manpower to deduce the cryptogram’s clues and due actual physical recon to locate any possible lead.
Gates at one point during our clip sees a properly engraved Masonic symbol saying: “This is a Masonic symbol…what does it all mean?
Watch as Josh rappels and climbs into caves that are partially submerged with seawater to fall down these rabbit holes in search of The Buzzard’s Treasure. Noting the shape of the island by air, Josh says: “It does look like a woman in the water.”
Later, he surveys the cave where he sees the mark of “x” and says: “A literal ‘x’ marks the spot!”
The lore of the lost treasure
The tale of this treasure began back in 1716 when a Frenchman, Olivier Levasseur, aka ‘La Buse’ (The Buzzard) became a privateer. He then thought that his skills were best suited to being a pirate, and voila, he did just that.
In 1721, Levasseur and his pirate pals, about 750 pirates over three ships, crossed with a Portuguese galleon flying British colors, Nossa Senhora do Cabo, in the port of La Réunion, aka Bourbon Island.
They landed 250 men on board and dispatched the crew when Levasseur found this ship to be the mother lode, a virtual treasure house, believed to consist of gold and silver bars, precious stones, uncut diamonds, guineas, church plate and goblets. The pirates disbanded but Levasseur was crafty and his cache, making a mysterious cryptogram on where the booty lay undisturbed, even until now.
The Buzzard is believed to have hidden his treasure on the Seychelles island of Mahé. This is not a confirmed fact.
The mystery of this treasure unclaimed now has Josh Gates in hot pursuit for the episode you will not want to miss.
Exclusive preview of Expedition Unknown The Buzzard Treasure:
Watch as Josh rappels, and is pelted by seawater getting to a hidden cave where Masonic markers are guiding them to the possible burial grounds of the lost treasure of Olivier Levasseur, the pirate who struck fear into the ships crossing the Atlantic from Europe to the New World and beyond.
Expedition Unknown airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on Discovery Channel