- Even the smallest clue can help solve the biggest crimes.
A shady preacher scams millions out of his congregation, turns the money into U.S. silver dollars, and ships them all to Norway. However, a tip about a reckless driver blows it all up and leads the cops to a hidden treasure.
Sounds like a Hollywood movie, right? But that’s the gist of a years-long international investigation that recently wrapped up in Norway.
Three Norwegians were recently handed prison sentences after they were caught transporting a literal treasure. In their van, the group had more than $2.5 million worth of American silver dollars.
And they got caught after an everyday tip-off about reckless driving.
But this was just the end of the story. It began years ago in the U.S. with a crooked preacher who sent the money he scammed out of well-meaning people abroad after converting it to silver.
Let’s take a closer look at this convoluted crime saga.
Shocking Traffic Stop
Let’s start with the latest development. Which isn’t actually that new, since the arrest itself took place already in April 2025.
The police in Oslo, Norway’s capital, received a call from a concerned citizen who wanted to report a van swerving and driving erratically just outside the city. With identifying information in hand, the cops performed a traffic stop.
Inside the van, however, they found a real jackpot: tens of thousands of American Eagle silver dollars. That alone would’ve been one heck of a bust, but things got even better (for the police at least).
Soon afterward, they pulled over another van that was somehow connected to the first one. Inside were even more coins.
Altogether, the police confiscated almost 67,000 U.S. silver dollars, worth approximately $2.65 million.
On September 17, the Norwegian financial crime unit Okokrim announced that three Norwegians – two men and one woman – had been sentenced to two and a half years in prison for organizing a fraud scheme and storing stolen property. Two British citizens were acquitted of related charges.
The coins recovered in the 2025 arrest were part of a much larger haul. They represent the missing half of a silver hoard first discovered in 2019.
$13-Million Fraud Scheme
But why was all this American silver hidden in Norway? That’s a long and convoluted story; frankly, too convoluted for me to write down in full detail here. So, here’s the basic outline.
It all started with Nathan Peachey, a Pennsylvanian would-be preacher, and John Winer, from New Mexico. Together, the duo concocted a fraud scheme that preyed on people who only wanted to do good.
Peachey and Winer, often appealing to their victims’ religious sentiments, collected money for supposed charitable causes. They claimed to run an international Christian charity that would use the money to provide housing to people in poor countries. Altogether, the scammer ring collected around $13 million.
The money was certainly sent abroad, but not to aid those less fortunate. Instead, Peachey, who had lived in Norway for a decade, funneled much of the money into the Nordic country.
He purchased a swanky mansion overlooking a fjord that became something of a headquarters for the gang. Plenty of the money went to outfitting the luxurious home with jacuzzis, marble countertops and stairs, and other lavish details.
Yet, Peachey and Winer also laundered the money by purchasing American Eagle silver dollars. They bought nearly $6 million in the collectible coins.
And then they stored them in the mansion’s garage.
That’s where the authorities discovered the silver in 2019 after a joint investigation between American and Norwegian police got on Peachey’s trail. At the mansion, they found 79,500 silver dollars, worth nearly $3 million.
Peachey and Winer were arrested following the discovery, and their plot came apart. Peachey was sentenced to 25 years and Winer to 22 years in jail in 2022.
Last Missing Bits
The duo’s financial records, however, showed that they had bought more silver than they’d stored in the mansion’s garage. Authorities stopped one shipment in the U.S., but where was the rest?
Both American and Norwegian police believed that the money was somewhere in Norway. They just had no clue where it could be. Peachey and Winer had been fairly careful about hiding their loot, and they had accomplices that, at the time, were unknown to the investigators.
Luckily for the cops, they received that reckless driving tip in 2025. With that, they believe they’ve now found the missing silver and the case is closed.
“It is gratifying that the silver has been recovered and that a verdict has now been handed down, enabling the victims of the fraud in the U.S. to have the misappropriated assets returned to them,” said Norwegian public prosecutor Jon Andre Hvoslef-Eide in a statement.