Dive Brief:

• Earl Ray Jones exchanged his retirement savings of $500,000 for gold bars, and, in an attempt to hide the money from his soon-to-be ex-wife, threw it into a dumpster behind a motel.

• The man now claims he can't locate the gold, which is believed to have been transported to a local landfill.

• Although records proved that the man converted his savings to gold, it has not been established if the gold was actually discarded.

Dive Insight:

The gold was possibly picked up by a Waste Connections sanitation truck, then brought to the Fountain landfill, just outside of Colorado Springs. If the gold is ever recovered at the landfill, the battle for the gold may go to court, according to Waste Management, the typical waste contract states that anything sent to a landfill is considered property of the landfill.