No, that's not what happened. I'm guessing you saw this news before under a clickbait title.
It's not about where gold was found, it's about where he stashed it later. These are assets that are (or were) in his hands which partially belong to all the investors he defrauded.
The ongoing refusal to answer questions under oath is.
He could have agreed to talk anytime and been released shortly.
It's a civil proceeding not a criminal proceeding so he would not be incriminating himself.
He could argue that by answering he would be admitting crimes and opening himself to criminal liability. But there's a possibly they give him immunity and that route is taken away.
I remember once reading two bits of news about people given similar sentences. One for copyright infringement, the other for sexual assault of a teenager.
“On my life, I will not part with a single coin.”
It’s a mystery to me how on one day on HN you will see “corporate death penalty” discussed and on the next “$400MM white collar crimes should not be punished as much as murdering a single person”.
If this were Apple, Google, or Meta having committed the crime, I think the tenor of the discussion would be very different.
Bernie Madoff got 150 years in prison for his Ponzi scheme.
All three of those guys are the very definition of wealthy and powerful, and there are endless other, albeit smaller, examples.
Always have your conversations in person and have underlings sign documents relating to transactions.
Also, you can systemically steal from future generations with no consequence, as a voter and leader. Promise people today big pensions and retiree healthcare, underfund today by telling actuaries to use unrealistic assumptions, or just straight up ignore funding recommendations, and then let the debt pile up for others to deal with.
LOL. The whole system is based on constantly stealing fruits of one's labor by way of inflation and 2 classes of haves and have-nots in regards to real assets. How can regular Joe have faith in it is beyond my comprehension.