Reginald Herbert Cruise-Wilkins, known as the “Treasure Man” in the island nation of Seychelles, dedicated 27 years of his life to the pursuit of a vast fortune. Following in his footsteps, his son John continues this adventurous quest.
Illustration of pirates.
After many years of relentless treasure hunting, John continues to surprise people with his story, backpack in tow, trying to piece together a complex puzzle.
John explains that the legend of the treasure began in 1716 when a Frenchman named Olivier Levasseur was granted command of a private ship.
However, within a few months, Levasseur decided to turn to a more lucrative profession: piracy.
In 1721, Levasseur and 750 pirates stumbled upon a British-owned Spanish warship named Nossa Senhora do Cabo in the harbor of Bourbon Island, now known as La Réunion. Levasseur quickly boarded with 250 pirates and killed the entire crew to loot the ship.
He was astonished to find a vast amount of treasure on board.
According to John, a historian described the Spanish ship as a “floating treasure house filled with gold bars, silver, gemstones, rough diamonds, guinea gold coins, and the church’s chalices and patens.”
John emphasizes: “Each pirate was given 42 diamonds and 5,000 gold bars. Additionally, there was a surplus of treasure distributed among the pirate leaders.”
However, the pirates then mysteriously “vanished,” and it is believed that Levasseur hid his gold on Mahé Island in the Seychelles.
Historian John believes treasure hunting is his life’s purpose.
“My father believed that Levasseur managed a crew of 20 men. Even Levasseur’s crew was oblivious to the exact location of the treasure’s hiding place. The treasure could be located in a cave, kept temporarily, waiting for a calm situation before Levasseur officially buried it. The team responsible for hiding the treasure was later assassinated,” John said.
Since then, no one but the pirate Levasseur knew its location, but Levasseur was captured by authorities and sentenced to death on July 7, 1730, on La Réunion Island. Before his death, he caught a glimpse of some of his fellow pirates hiding in the crowd, smiling at him smugly.
Before the crowd, Levasseur threw a piece of paper into the sky and shouted: “My treasure is only for those who can understand it.”
This paper was a treasure map in the form of a cipher consisting of 17 lines of text. Verified for authenticity as early as the 18th century by the British Museum, the cipher consists of 17 lines of chaotic symbols.
17 lines of cipher directing to Levasseur’s treasure.
Levasseur was an intellectual, a scholar of Greek and Latin, skilled in the art of using symbolic notation.
Therefore, Cruise-Wilkins spent many years trying to decode the cipher using all available information from Greek, Hebrew, astrology, astronomy, mythology, and the occult to break the complex system of clues.
Based on his findings, Cruise-Wilkins believed that Levasseur’s cipher was crafted into a complex riddle inspired by the 12 Labors of Hercules.
This man theorized that the treasure lay in a beautiful area named Bel Ombre on the northern coast of Mahé Island, surrounded by azure waters, lush vegetation, and smooth granite rocks shaped by the waves.
Mahé is such a small island that all the residents know each other. They share a common belief about the vast treasure rumored to be on that island. “I don’t care what they think, but many believe my father and I are crazy.
And they all have the same question: Why are you hunting for treasure? People don’t do that anymore these days.
Reginald Cruise-Wilkins has been hunting for treasure for 27 years.
However, for him and his late father, the journey of treasure hunting was not just a way of life but also a commitment of intellect and physical effort into which they poured all their energy and money.
John has scoured over 16,000 square meters around the Bel Ombre area, exploring crevices and caves and discovering markings he believes were left by pirates on the rocks.
He even found human bones, pistols, iron ball ammunition, and small statues.
However, John’s digging is considered illegal without permission from the Seychelles government. Although he has been searching for treasure since 1988, in 2009, John was halted by authorities until he could pay 250,000 Rupees for a permit.
“The government owns this land, so they are entitled to 50% of the assets by law,” John said. Nevertheless, he emphasized that he would not give up.
