VEGA Baja is a poor village on the coast of Puerto Rico, but six weeks ago everything
changed.
The villagers suddenly got rich.
The FBI says the villagers found millions in buried treasure, and Vega Baja will never
be the same again.
The Everglades is the backbone of life for the state of Florida, and one woman is responsible
for preserving it.
And she has a lot of experience because she's 100 years old.
The president and first lady want kids to watch Bugs Bunny and Donald Duck this weekend.
They're not loony, it's a summit of cartoon characters united against drugs.
Welcome to Inside Edition, I'm Bill O'Reilly, we're glad you're with us today.
In addition to our headline stories, we'll also have a follow-up report on a woman who
is accusing the IRS of the worst possible behavior.
But first up today, there could be as much as $20 million floating around and the folks
in a poor town have got it.
And they're going wild, spending like crazy, but will they pay the price?
Here's Craig Rivera.
Vega Baja, Puerto Rico is a small coastal town deeply rooted in religion.
The residents here are a hardworking group.
Their families have lived along the narrow streets of this village for generations without
much happening besides their religious festivals.
Then, about six weeks ago, things started to change.
More people of Vega Baja started spending money like it was going out of style.
New cars, new investments, new jewelry.
It changed the face of this tiny town.
People who had nothing suddenly became millionaires.
It was Vega Baja's secret until the money started to burn holes in their pockets.
And they go to the credit union and deposit the $50,000 bucks and someone in the credit
union called the police and then the police called the FBI.
Miguel Rivera Puig is a reporter for El Visero, Puerto Rico's leading tabloid.
Last week, his newspaper headline screamed about the source of the new riches in Vega
Baja.
The source?
Buried treasure.
According to the report, 12 huge drums, each filled with $10, $20, and $100 bills were
dug up by the locals.
The FBI was quoted as saying one of the barrels contained $1.5 million.
Much of that money has still not yet been recovered.
Maybe people take the money, maybe $20 million, $20 bills, and start to spend the money.
The FBI is now investigating that $20 million.
Already they have seized some of the cash and property that's been bought.
But the source of the money is still a mystery.
The logical assumption would be that it's the ill-gotten gains of the illegal drug trade.
Drug dealers have found that Puerto Rico provides an easy entrance for drugs coming into the
mainland of the United States from South America.
Police believe the cash was hidden by the leaders of a locally infamous drug ring who
live in the area.
How do you think the townspeople knew where the money was buried?
You live in a countryside, you know, you are going to know when some stranger is there,
you're going to look what this stranger is doing.
One of the residents probably saw a stranger come into town and bury this money.
Is that what you're saying?
Yes.
Vega Baja's mayor told us the police won't reveal the names of the people who found the
money because of the potential for reprisal from those who buried it.
As far as I know, the problem is that the authorities identified them, they could be
in danger.
The mayor told us that most likely the people who found the money will not be charged.
If it is proved the money came from drugs, it will be seized.
If not, they'll get to keep half and the rest goes to the Commonwealth.
But there are other factors.
They are afraid now of the drug dealers.
As one might expect, the treasure of Vega Baja is the talk of the town.
Luis Vallejo owns a house here, although he lives in New York.
While he's been here, he has seen an invasion of treasure seekers coming into town.
They fly over here from New York and any part of the world to come over here to find out.
Oh really?
Especially people that have those special machines to look for metal, metal, metal detectors
and everything.
So everybody's looking for the treasure of Vega Baja.
That's right.
Word that the treasure belongs to drug dealers, however, has driven off most seekers of the
greenback.
The fear of the drug lords has encouraged a strict code of silence here, something we
learned when we tried to find out which of the lucky residents dug up the fortune.
What about the people buying houses and buying new cars?
Somebody come over there and not talk to you.
This man indicated a tough barrier closer to the ocean as the area of the money was
found.
But when we went there, the locals were also reluctant to talk.
Do you know the place where they found the money over there?
No, here.
Where?
Over there.
Over where?
You're pointing there.
What's that?
I don't know where it is.
Nobody's talking, right?
Well, no.
It's high tide.
Yeah, because the high fjord was low tide.
No one knows for sure who buried the treasure or when they might return to claim it.
So the residents of Vega Baja aren't talking.
They just want things to get back to normal.
Since the discovery of the buried money, that seems unlikely.
Money talks with people who have it don't and the FBI will not comment on this case
until the investigation has been completed.
Inside Edition moves ahead for you in just a moment.
She is fighting for what is right and she's 100 years old.
She really made people start to understand that the environment isn't a wasteland even
if it's a wetland area.
It's extremely productive and valuable.
Today's math lesson is on the Nissan Sentra Standard.
Until May 2nd, you can get $1,000 cash back from Nissan.
An amount that when used to charge down payment allows for payments as low as $142 a month.
A thousand cash back can mean no more money down and $142 a month.
It all adds up to one great deal.
And you thought math was your worst subject.
So see your nearest Nissan dealer now because this deals days are numbered.
This is the incredible Kentucky Fried Chicken 10-Piece Meal Deal.
And this is a beautiful spring day at a picture-perfect meadow very near where you live.
Right now for just $9.99 you can zip into the Colonel's and pick up this big 10-piece
bucket of tender delicious chicken seasoned with 11 herbs and spices plus large mashed
potatoes, large gravy, large coleslaw and four hot buttermilk biscuits.
Then spend the rest of the afternoon lazing around here or you can go home and cook dinner.
What will it be?
I'm going to take care of you and you're going to take care of me.
When she fell in love with a handsome stranger.
By a nice little house and they happily wrapped.
He didn't just steal her heart.
Let's go straight and happily ever after.
He stole a cop's badge, a neighbor's gun and a piece of the action from every foot in Miami.
Fred Ward.
You know who he really is?
Alec Baldwin.
He's a murderer.
Miami Blues.
Love can be a killer.
Rated R. Starts Friday, April 20th at theaters everywhere.
There is a saying that goes lead, follow or get out of the way.
And if you see Marjorie Douglas coming, you better get out of the way.
Marjorie is 100 years old and is still fighting for the environment.
Here's John Scott.
It is morning in early April.
The sun wakes up to burn off the accumulated mist of a colder than usual night.
A blue heron rises to fish as the pale pink light pierces the black waters of his home.
It is a place most Americans will never visit.
A place made mysterious in ballads and poems.
A place of exotic birds and usually abundant animals.
These are the Florida Everglades.
1000 square miles of sawgrass and swamp, water and wildlife.
It seems peaceful enough here and it is.
But these are troubled times for the Glades.
This vast and watery land is in danger of drying up with devastating consequences.
It could have happened already.
But the Everglades found an advocate, intelligent and eloquent and now 100 years old.
She may not look like an environmental warrior but don't underestimate Marjorie Stoneman
Douglas.
She's been on this earth an entire century and for most of that time she's been fighting
to save the Glades.
Well they wanted to drain the Everglades way back in Governor Broward's day.
He ran for governor on the slogan of draining the Everglades.
Consider she was born in 1890.
Queen Victoria was still the reigning monarch on the throne of England.
In 1890 Charles de Gaulle was born.
So was Dwight Eisenhower.
While they and so many others are gone, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas lives on.
We spoke to her on the weekend of her 100th birthday.
She wears a hearing aid and thick glasses.
Her eyesight is nearly gone.
But her mind is as sharp as the Everglades sawgrass.
And so at 100 years of age she serves as the environmental conscience of the state of Florida.
We couldn't keep on living here else the Glades would dry it up.
She jumped off the train in Miami 1915.
This independent young woman from Massachusetts, age 25 and in the middle of a divorce, who
came down to write for her father's newspaper.
There weren't 5,000 people in the town.
It was a small town.
Not very interesting.
But the country was wonderful and open and all that and untouched.
It's impossible to list the accomplishments of her 100 years in these few minutes.
When women fought for the right to vote she fought with them.
In the post-Civil War years she argued for civil rights when few Southerners knew what
the term meant.
I was always a damn Yankee.
It seems that you were a pioneer for so many other women.
You did so many things that seemed so far before their time.
No really.
They may have been far before their time in the South but not in the North.
But it is for her environmental work that she's become known worldwide.
At the age of 57 Marjorie Douglas published her first and most famous book, The Everglades,
River of Grass.
Just those three words, River of Grass, tell you all you need to know about the Everglades.
And that educated the whole literate world on what the Everglades really is.
The Everglades is not a stagnant swamp but rather a slow moving river, six inches deep,
50 miles wide.
Its waters fill the wells that allowed once tiny Miami to grow into a metropolis of millions.
The Florida's food chain from fish to birds to alligators and ultimately even the people
is vitally dependent on the Everglades existence.
Did you think anybody cared about the Everglades?
I didn't know what they did or they didn't.
I was interested.
One, two, three.
No surprise then that as the sun rose halfway through this, her 100th birthday, a large
crowd gathered to wish her well.
Some who've watched her for a lifetime, others whose lifetimes will benefit from her vision
and courage.
All of them here to say thanks for many jobs well done.
I've heard talks that you think too much is being made of your 100th birthday.
Well, I think they are.
I'm going a little more to the bottom but I can't help enjoying it.
The same year her book was published, Congress set aside part of this river of grass as Everglades
National Park.
Today, it is considered the most endangered of our national parks and yet it is frightening
to imagine what could have happened here had there not been the conscience of Marjorie
Stoneman Douglas.
I think she really made people start to understand that the environment isn't a wasteland even
if it's a wetland area.
That it's extremely productive and valuable and should be protected and she really led
the charge on that idea.
What is your wish for the next 100 years?
Well, I don't wish anything for another 100 years.
I don't expect to live that long.
Is cantankerous a good word to describe you?
I think so very often.
I think I sound a bit cantankerous right now.
Out in the Everglades, a buzzard soared over the sawgrass below.
A deer ventured out timid and watchful, browsing through the evening light.
Alligators caught the last warmth of the sun around pools of water not easily found in
this abnormally dry season.
And that sun, all rosy and warm, fell behind the western clouds, a glorious end to the
100th birthday of a glorious lady.
John Scott with an amazing woman, a great story.
And Marjorie is currently finishing work on a new book, if you can believe it.
Her first book is still selling well.