Friday April 13 8:24 AM ET
Gold Fever Grips Thailand As Fabled Hoard Said Found

By Andrew Marshall

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Gold fever swept Thailand on Friday after a controversial politician said a vast hoard of treasure hidden by Japanese troops during World War Two had been found in a cave and could help solve the country's economic woes.

Senator Chaowarin Latthasaksiri, often mocked for his long hunt for the fabled Japanese booty, said hundreds of tons of treasure, including two tons of gold, were found packed in train carriages hidden in the remote Liijia cave near Kanchanaburi, close to Thailand's western border with Myanmar.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra took the story seriously enough to fly to the cave by helicopter to meet Chaowarin.

Newspapers made light of Chaowarin's story. The senator has made similar claims before -- in 1995 he said he had found the location of the fabled Japanese gold, but it proved to be a false
alarm. Rumors of the hoard have lured thousands of treasure hunters but the tale has usually been dismissed as a myth.

``'Mad' senator cries banzai! -- again,'' was the headline in Friday's Nation daily.

But Thaksin, who visited the entrance to the cave and saw photographs said to show the stash of treasure hidden deep within, said there was no reason to disbelieve Chaowarin.

``I believe his story of what he has found is genuine but I don't know whether this treasure is still valuable,'' Thaksin told reporters. He said that if real, the stash could be worth ''tens of billions of baht'' (hundreds of millions of dollars).

Chaowarin said he would meet Thailand's king on Tuesday to present his findings, and would hold a news conference on Wednesday to give full details to the public.

``I'M Not Mad''

``It proves that I'm not mad. People have said I'm insane,'' the Nation quoted Chaowarin as saying. He said the discovery would be the property of the nation and would help Thailand pay off its hefty national debt and recover from economic crisis.

Tales have long been told in Thailand that the departing Japanese Imperial Army left vast riches hidden in the country as it retreated from Myanmar (Burma) in 1945.

The legend was fuelled by the claims of a Thai monk who says he stumbled on the hoard years ago in an underground labyrinth, where he saw gold bars, train carriages loaded with treasure, and skeletons wearing samurai swords.

Thousands of treasure hunters, including some former Japanese soldiers, have hunted for the fabled booty for years. Thai newspapers say at least half a dozen people have lost their lives in the search, killed in accidents or dying after getting lost in caves.

Chaowarin has made the search for the treasure a personal crusade. Following his false alarm in 1995, environmental officials halted the hunt. But they allowed it to resume earlier this year, saying they would allow one last effort to end speculation about the ``groundless myth'' once and for all.

The senator has enlisted the help of the military to explore the cave, and used explosives and bulldozers in his efforts to uncover the haul.

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