Picture up to 208 million dollars in raw treasure: chests of jewels, gold altarpieces, and two life-size solid gold statues of the Virgin Mary. Now picture handing the key to a merchant captain and telling him to keep it safe. What happens when the guardians decide they would rather be pirates?

This episode unpacks the legend of the Treasure of Lima through colonial records and centuries of newspaper clippings. We follow the panic that loaded an empire's fortune onto a wooden ship, the bloody mutiny that followed, the bizarre jungle escape, and the two-century obsession that has destroyed nearly everyone who chased it.

• Facing San Martin's advance in 1820, Lima's viceroy stripped the churches and entrusted the wealth to British captain William Thompson of the Mary Dear for transport to Mexico.
• Thompson's crew murdered the  ...