The Cursed Map of Loco Sanchez Mystery Cache

The story of Loco Sanchez starts on a farm outside the small town of Cordovilla in the province of Salamanca in the country of Spain sometime between 1654 and 1666. He was born to a poor farming family. In 1695 he became first mate on a Spanish privateer assigned to attack French smugglers along the coast. The crew became increasingly agitated after many months of no pay, and Sanchez led a successful mutiny against the captain of the ship. He was promptly elected captain of the newly christened Diablo.

Under new name, and new leadership they sailed north and quickly captured two French and three English ships adding to his crew. Sanchez, or Loco Sanchez as he was already beginning to be known, would lure locals out of their villages under the pretense of trade only to attack and capture them as slaves. Soon the name Loco Sanchez was feared all up and down the western coasts of Europe and Africa.

In early 1697 while in the Red Sea, Loco Sanchez formed a pirate flotilla of four ships commanded by Peg Legged Peggy, Greybeard, and Bloody Fargloom. With these he attacked the Grand Mogul's Fatah Mohammed and the larger 40-gun Gang-i-Seawal, which were busy accompanying a pilgrim fleet. The Gang-i-Seawal lost its mainmast, and a cannon exploded on deck, shortening the fight and resistance. The passengers and crew were brutalized in hope that the locations of any secret stash would be revealed; some jumped ship, and some of the women committed suicide. The search yielded 650,000 Pounds in gold, silver, and jewels in one of the largest hauls ever, and each man got over 1500 Pounds.

Soon after the flotilla split up, and some of Loco Sanchez's crew left to go their separate ways. Sanchez sailed west to the Caribbean and bought the protection of the local settlements, and proceeded to throw amazing and lavish parties for the remaining members of his crew and the locals alike.

It wasn't long before representatives of the governments he had stolen from and their fleets tracked him down. Before he could be captured he voluntarily met with the leader of the men hunting him, Gary Taft, and offered him 25,000 Pounds to buy his pardon. Taft refused the deal, and Loco Sanchez and a few of his men fled on the Diablo easily outrunning the larger fleet ships.

Knowing that their pursuers would never give up, the last members of Sanchez's crew drove the Diablo ashore and went their separate ways. Some stayed in the Caribbean, some went to America, and some others returned to Spain and Europe. They were all rich beyond their wildest dreams and had grown accustomed to their lavish lifestyle by then and couldn't help but stick out wherever they went. Laying lowing and pretending to be inconspicuous were not their strong suits and thus they were easily caught.

The last of Loco Sanchez's crew to finally be caught was Sanchez himself many many years later when he returned to his home in Cordovilla, Spain. By this time he was well over 60 years old. Rather than the customary instantaneous execution that was traditional for pirates of his notoriety his captors' sense of vengeance had dulled over the years that he had eluded them, but their greed had grown. They understood that he had evaded capture for so long because he had not spent much of his, the largest, share of the loot. Meaning that most of this treasure was still somewhere in the world waiting to be found.

The only possession of note that Loco Sanchez had on him at the time of his capture was a curious, hand-drawn map. He was quickly stripped of the map, and thrown in a prison cell while his captors made plans to spend the money that they knew they would get once they followed the map to find Loco Sanchez's treasure. They spent years trying to decipher the strange symbols and scribbles on the map only to give up in frustration. Loco Sanchez was still alive and still in prison and would never reveal a single clue as to how to use the map even while being tortured.

The only response he would give was if someone asked if the map lead to his treasure: His wrinkled, cracked lips would pull themselves taut against his emaciated jaw bones in a hideous grin of defiance, and he would laugh a cruel, piercing, and demented laugh. Whatever secrets of how to use the map died along with Loco Sanchez himself in prison.

Over the years the map has passed from father to son, from friend to friend, but none were able to decipher where the treasure was hidden. Reports of strange events happening to whomever possesses the map lead to the fear that the map was cursed. People have literally driven themselves insane pursuing the fool's errand of trying to find the elusive treasure of Loco Sanchez.

Needless to say, it is now I who have come, through rather strange circumstances I must admit, to possess the map. While researching the history of the map I noted some reoccurring themes: The people who have been driven the most insane, and thereby losing the most, from the map's curse seem to be the people who have been the most greedy in their pursuit. Money has never been the largest motivating factor in my life, and I'd like to imagine that I am driven by a more scholarly pursuit than a monetary one.

For these reasons, among others, I have chosen to go about finding the treasure of Loco Sanchez via a much different path than it has historically been sought. I, through this internet format, intend anyone who has the motivation to solve the cursed map free reign to go to the location revealed and claim a small portion of the treasure for yourself.

It may seem completely superstitious and the exact antithesis of my scientific upbringing, but I have come to believe that terrible things occur to anyone who goes about this task in a greedy manner. I beg of you to keep fixed firmly in your mind the notion that you will not take the entire treasure for yourself. You will only take a few baubles or trinkets from the treasure. You are also encouraged to work together as a team to figure out the location of the treasure.

The only thing I ask in return is to keep in close correspondence with me regarding your progress, or lack of progress, by periodically sending me status updates through this website. By collating and organizing the information you all send me I will be able to fairly and equitably post any new information that we as a community can glean from this map. This way everyone will have an equal and fair chance of receiving their hard earned share of the treasure. You can all be assured that I will not take the knowledge you send me to find and take all of the treasure for myself, because I believe if that was my intention the map would claim me as it's next victim.

Obviously, the document is very very old and very very fragile so I won't be allowing any of the treasure seekers to handle the map itself directly, but I have had a team of restoration experts enhance it as much as possible removing as many layers of filth as they could while keeping the detail intact. I then created several high quality scan of the map so I could post them on this website. First, is a smaller compressed jpeg image so you can get an idea of what we're dealing with, but I also encourage you to take a look at the high resolution image in the link below. The dimensions of the original map are roughly eight and a half inches by eight and a half inches square.

So, without any further ado I present to you, fellow scholars, the fabled (and most likely cursed) treasure map of Loco Sanchez:

High Resolution Scan

Congratulations to StinkyMillers for being FTF!