• Mysterious gold, jewelry washes up on Venezuelan beach
    https://nypost.com/2020/12/12/mysterious-gold-jewelry-washes-up-on-venezuelan-beach

    For several months gold and silver jewelry, ornaments, and golden nuggets have started washing up on the shore of a small Venezuelan fishing village that had been devastated by the country’s economic crisis and COVID-19.

    Yolman Lares was the first to find treasure on the beach in Guaca in September when he found a gold medallion with an image of the Virgin Mary.

    “I began to shake, I cried from joy,” Lares, 25, told The New York Times. “It was the first time something special has happened to me.”

    Since then “dozens of villagers” have retrieved items – mostly gold rings – from the beach, including Ciro Quijada, a local fish plant worker who told the Times “This is God, setting his agenda.”

    Locals have sold their treasure for up to $1,500 a piece – a boon to the village.

    It is not known where the treasure has come from, but the paper notes the mystery has grown as a combination of folklore, the legends of Caribbean pirates and Christmas customs.