Body in the barrel was ‘casino boss who fell foul of Las Vegas mob’

The Times
 
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One afternoon Matt Blanchard and Shawn Rosen entered Lake Mead on their boat, tempted on to the water by rumours of riches buried beneath the waves.

They had been told Bugsy Siegel, the mobster who played a pivotal role in turning Las Vegas from a barren outpost into a thriving casino resort, supposedly stashed valuables in barrels at the bottom before he was murdered in Beverly Hills in 1947.

“We’re expecting jewellery,” Rosen told The Washington Post. “Where there’s bodies, there’s treasure.”

They emerged empty-handed, though others have not. As the waters of the lake recede amid a historic drought in the American West, the huge reservoir formed by the Hoover Dam near Las Vegas has been revealing its secrets. A Second World War-era