Why didn't they just convict him of fraud and fine him the estimated value of the missing coins, rather than trying to convince him to divulge where they were? Now, the guy is out of jail and they still haven't recovered the value of the gold from him. Lose-lose for the plaintiffs and for justice. Why are we so soft on fraud?
I’m not sure that is being soft on fraud, but being realistic and thinking the other dude would crack first.
For one, to convict him, they’d need to prove the coins existed (actually) and they were plausibly worth that much. Not a straightforward thing if you have no idea where they are, eh?