#Finder’s lack of details raises red flags

A Michigan medical student who came forward last week as the finder of a storied $2 million treasure refuses to say how he cracked the mystery or reveal the exact location of the hidden cache of gold coins and jewelry.

The lack of detail in Jack Stuef’s story, published in a first-person account Monday in The Medium, is frustrating a group of ardent treasure seekers, many of whom emptied their bank accounts and risked their lives to find the bronze chest hidden by enigmatic antiques dealer Forrest Fenn in 2010.

“I was almost relieved when I saw his picture because I felt finally we could put all of this to rest,” said Miriam de Fronzo, a massage therapist from Florida who spent nearly four years poring over a poem by Fenn that contained clues to the treasure’s whereabouts. She made four trips to New Mexico to search for the chest.

“But actually his explanation has raised a lot of red flags,” she said, adding that she has sent several e-mails to Stuef, begging him to make public his “solve” of Fenn’s poem. So far, he has refused, de Fronzo told The Post.

Stuef, who claims he found the treasure in June after two years of searching, did not disclose how he deciphered Fenn’s clues, and has said he will not reveal the exact location of his find, which he claims was somewhere in Wyoming.

“If I were to reveal where the treasure was, the natural wonder of place that Forrest held so dear will be destroyed by people seeking treasure they hope I dropped on my way out or Forrest on his way in,” wrote Stuef in the Medium article, which featured a photograph of him sitting next to Fenn. “Adding to this risk is the fact that Forrest never wrote up an inventory of what was in the chest at the time he secreted it, so I can’t prove to anyone that no item is missing from the chest.”

He said he only came forward because a lawsuit filed by a fellow treasure seeker was about to make his name public. Chicago lawyer Barbara Andersen claimed in a lawsuit filed in New Mexico federal court in June that whomever found the treasure had hacked her emails and texts to do so — a claim that Stuef vehemently denied.

But some diehard searchers aren’t buying Steuf’s explanation.

“Forrest wanted to end the chase so he had to figure out how to do it without anyone getting mad,” wrote Terry Kasberg, a searcher on Treasures Galore, a Facebook group devoted to the Fenn treasure. “The chest now sits in a vault in Santa Fe. This person can’t answer any questions about anything concerning the clues because he doesn’t know so he uses the excuse that the location cannot be disclosed due to it being trashed.”

Stuef did not return The Post’s request for comment.

Fenn’s family confirmed to Outside Magazine earlier this week that Stuef is indeed the finder. In June, Fenn announced the treasure had been found by a man from “back east” but that he wanted to remain anonymous.

Fenn, an art and antiques dealer based in Santa Fe, died in September. The hunt for Fenn’s El Dorado attracted more than 350,000 searchers and resulted in five deaths over the last decade.