Upstate New York: Home to the wings of Buffalo, Niagara Falls and the buried treasure of a gangster?

Yes, legend has it that a stash of gold, bonds, and jewels that once belonged to a New York City bootlegger named Dutch Schultz is hidden in the Catskills town of Phoenicia. For almost 90 years, the criminal's riches have been hunted, but after a recent breakthrough, two confident men believe they're about to hit the jackpot.

Colorfully known as the Bronx Beer Baron, Schultz made a fortune during Prohibition in the 1920s by selling suds, when alcoholic drinks were illegal throughout the US. Schultz, born Arthur Simon Flegenheimer in 1902, and raised in a slummy Bronx neighborhood, made a lucrative trade of hawking prohibited alcohol along with his thugs, even though their brew was considered to be the most horrendous tasting stuff in town.

Chalk up the performance of the gangster to a persuasive sales spiel. Nate Hendley, author of "Dutch Schultz: The Brazen Beer Baron of New York," told The Post, "He and his partner, Joey Noe, were extremely violent." They would go to speakeasies and threaten to beat the [owners] who didn't buy their beer out of the crap. One of the owners of the saloon, Joe Rock, dumb enough to refuse, got hanging by his thumbs. Placed over his eyes was a rag dipped in a gonorrhea sore. Ultimately, it blinded him.'

Schultz padded his overflowing coffers even further with strong-arming racketeers in Harlem after Prohibition ended in 1933, pushing them to cut him as a partner. But Thomas E. Dewey, the NY prosecutor (later to be governor and a defeated presidential candidate), vowed to avoid his misdeeds. Dewey said that the Dutch will be imprisoned by similar means in the wake of fellow gangster Al Capone being found guilty of income tax evasion.

"According to a new documentary, "Secrets of the Dead: Gangster's Gold," Schultz, a miser who, Hendley said, "looked like an unemployed clerk," is believed to have planned for his takedown by burying in the Catskills a princely amount of cash, bonds and diamonds. It has never been identified to this day.

The film, which airs on PBS on Nov. 18, is followed by a pair of Canadian treasure hunters, Steve Zazulyk and Ryan Fazekas, who think they are closing in on the cache of the gangster. They maintain that at the time it was concealed, the loot was worth $7 million and around $150 million today. While the hidden treasure of Dutch is hardly a mystery, the show depicts two other amateur teams hunting for the same booty, Zazulyk insisted that he and his wife are better prepared than those warriors on the weekend. An arsenal of metal detectors and special radar improves their knowledge and experience.

"We've got ties," Zazulyk told The Post. "Bruce Alterman is the main guy," referring to a private investigator who lives in the area and claims to have had a family member who told him Schultz tales. Alterman presented memories of his grandfather on the show that excited the treasure hunters whose search had already taken them through a deeply wooded area near Yonkers and a home in Bronxville that could hold a secret tunnel used by Schultz.

He said, "Bruce is privy to a lot of private information that you would not mention to a lot of individuals." "Along with timelines, Bruce threaded the story with descriptions of how far [Dutch and his gang] went and the roads they took."

In a 1939 issue of Collier's magazine, Alterman found a revealing article. In it, Dutch Schultz's former lawyer remembered a 2-by-3-foot steel box loaded with diamonds, gold coins and bills of $1,000.

It's just a matter of finding it for someone," Alterman told the doc."

Even the producer of the show, Elizabeth Trojian, is on the chase, emotionally-and financially involved.

For Dutch Schultz, my grandfather was muscle," she told The Post." He kept a journal, and there were references to gold coins." As for the material payoff of Trojian, she sounds less certain: "We were saying at first that I would get 10 percent. It is now more like, "Let's see how big it is."

After he made noise about offending Dewey, Schultz evaded tax-related charges twice and was killed by fellow mobsters. Fearing that the assassination of a high-ranking elected official would carry heat to the Big Apple mobsters, Schultz was shot in the bathroom of the Newark chop-house he owned by a pair of hitmen from Murder, Incorporated.

A day later, on Oct. 24, 1935, Schultz died. But the gangster left an important hint about the whereabouts of his stash about two hours before he passed by.

In reference to his bodyguard/chauffeur, he said, "Lulu, take me back to Phoenicia." "Lulu, don't be a dope, we'd better get those Liberty Bonds out of the box and cash them out."

A police-appointed stenographer transcribed his ramblings and formed the spine of the book called 'The Last Words of Dutch Schultz' by William S. Burroughs.

It's easy to wonder why they are courting TV attention given that Zazulyk and Fazekas are more about commerce than art. "[A show] will work to our advantage," Zazulyk said. "Suddenly, someone who sees it could come out of the woodwork with knowledge we could never have expected."

Plus, there was guaranteed discretion: "We will allow just one camera with us and the guy [shooting] was sworn to secrecy."

A day later, on Oct. 24, 1935, Schultz died. But the gangster left an important hint about the whereabouts of his stash about two hours before he passed by.

In reference to his bodyguard/chauffeur, he said, "Lulu, take me back to Phoenicia." "Lulu, don't be a dope, we'd better get those Liberty Bonds out of the box and cash them out."

A police-appointed stenographer transcribed his ramblings and formed the spine of the book called 'The Last Words of Dutch Schultz' by William S. Burroughs.

It's easy to wonder why they are courting TV attention given that Zazulyk and Fazekas are more about commerce than art. "[A show] will work to our advantage," Zazulyk said. "Suddenly, someone who sees it could come out of the woodwork with knowledge we could never have expected."

Plus, there was guaranteed discretion: "We will allow just one camera with us and the guy [shooting] was sworn to secrecy."

A big hint is however, splashed all over the screen. It came from a picture promoted by Alterman and given by Tim Trojian, the director's brother. He owns land in the Catskills and agreed with Elizabeth that "muscle for Dutch Schultz" was given by their grandfather.

In Phoenicia, alongside Stoney Clove Creek, Trojian created what looks like a fairly harmless shot of a wooded area with a car parked nearby. Fazekas read into the picture, not one to underestimate a potential lead.

People [in the 1930s] didn't take pictures of scenery and waste their movies," he said." "And this is not scenic; someone had to mean it."

"Intimating that it is a shot of the burial spot, snapped for future reference in the documentary, he said, "My point is that they brought the heavy steel box and buried it next to Stoney Clove Creek.

Alterman said that a relation like no other is created by the picture." If we can fit the creek with the current position in that photo, I'll say let's break up the metal detectors.

So far only two 1903 gold coins near the creek have been discovered by Canadians.

Nevertheless, they are adamant that they are beyond the football field of fortune. Nevertheless, author Hendley sounded doubtful.

He said I am not highly confident." Seeking a treasure is at best, haphazard because no one knows where it is. Gangsters have not kept memos or minutes from their meetings and careful deliberation is not known to them. In a paper bag, Dutch may have thrown a bunch of money and told a guy to bury it. By now, it should all be dissolved.'

Zazulyk and Fazekas were encouraged by the two gold coins. The pieces were priced at around $950 each by Mark Schimel of Stack's Bowers Rare Coins in Manhattan, and Fazekas regarded them as "bread-crumb[s] leading us down a road to the big hit." Although temporarily slowed by COVID-related travel restrictions, he and Zazulyk are prepared to break out their scuba gear and start digging around the edge of the water.

Not only do we have to search this place, but we have to do it quickly before other people find out," Zazulyk told the doc." The search is underway! ”