I'm not saying he should have taken the full 7 tons out of the ground without telling anybody. The least he could have done is excavate a small portion of the gold to prove any of it exists at all. Don't go to the feds until you have proof of at least that much. You don't need to extract all the gold to prove you found any gold.

> He suspects the agency conducted a clandestine, overnight dig between the first and second days of the court-authorized excavation, found the gold, and spirited it away.

If his claim is true and it took the government only one day and one night to extract 7 tons of gold, then it couldn't have been very deep. He should have dug some of it up. As it stands, this guy has no proof that any gold ever existed at all. He never even laid eyes on the supposed gold.