The Kruger Millions

The account

As the British took Pretoria in 1900, President Paul Kruger's government emptied the Mint and the National Bank and fled east. Some say the gold reached European banks, some say the British seized it, but legend holds a fortune was buried in the rugged Transvaal, north of the Blyde River, never to be recovered.

Leads, where the trail points now

• The search corridor is the railway President Kruger took east from Pretoria toward Lourenco Marques in 1900; Machadodorp, Waterval-Onder, and the Komatipoort border are the traditional zones.
• The strongest documentary lead is the records of the Boer republic's gold reserves against eyewitness claims of crates offloaded; much may simply have funded the war or gone to Europe.
• Many Kruger-pond finds and maps are hoaxes; weigh them against the fact that most of the republic's gold is historically accounted for.