Plot Synopsis

TREASURE QUEST: SNAKE ISLAND is a one-hour reality series that follows an elite team of treasure hunters who explore a remote spot home to thousands of deadly vipers. In 1524, a horde of Incan gold -- known as the Treasure of the Trinity -- was stolen. For 500 years, Jesuits priests and privateers such as Thomas Cavendish and mathematician Paul Thiry have all searched the coast of Brazil for this legendary bounty, but in all that time, no one has cracked the code as to where the treasure might have been hidden...until now. This team of treasure hunters has a new theory on where the treasure lies: an island 90 miles off the coast of Brazil. It's a place called Snake Island, because the rock has the highest concentration of one of the most venomous snakes in the world: the golden lancehead viper. The team will stop at nothing -- scaling peaks through the jungle, exploring treacherous caves and diving among the galleons that sunk to the ocean floor centuries ago. Treasure hunting is nearly impossible and the team faces dangers both on land and at sea. It's a place where modern-day pirates still exist and word has gotten around that they are looking for treasure. But they're going to need more than pure brawn on this quest. The team needs to solve complex mathematical clues and puzzles protecting the treasure -- the same ones that have thwarted countless others before them. If Snake Island is the resting place of the legendary treasure, this elite team will uncover gold that's estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars: Cork Graham, Expedition Leader, who has dedicated his life to searching for lost treasure and is now focused on the Treasure of the Trinity; Mehgan Heaney-Grier, Expedition Dive Master, who is no stranger to high-pressure situations, but the true value of the Treasure of the Trinity for her lies in its historical and archaeological significance, not its monetary worth; Jeremy Whalen, Ship's Mechanic, who can build, fix or replace anything with just a few tools, and is participating in the hunt for the adrenaline rush and the promise of a huge payday; Aussie Bryan Fry, Herpetologist, who as 25 years of experience dealing with deadly reptiles -- and the battle scars to prove it -- and, for him, the real treasure is the chance to study the deadly golden lancehead viper up close; Keith 'Cappy' Plaskett, Boat Captain, who has dreamed of searching for sunken Spanish galleons off of Brazil's coast. Season 2 of TREASURE QUEST: SNAKE ISLAND premiered on Friday, November 4, 2016 at 10pm ET/PT on Discovery Channel. After a death-defying expedition on Brazil's deadly Snake Island, a group of real-life treasure hunters continue their quest for the Treasure of the Trinity, a legendary hoard of Inca gold worth nearly $400 million. At the end of last season, team leaders Jeremy Whalen and Cork Graham solved a critical clue on Snake Island that indicated the treasure was hidden in the depths of the treacherous Paraguayan jungle. Confident they've honed in on the exact location, the explorers go all out in pursuit of the ultimate fortune. This season, the treasure hunters depart Snake Island and continue their journey into the deepest recesses of the South American mainland to unearth priceless Inca artifacts that are part of the Treasure of the Trinity. With the elusive bounty at their fingertips, they must first survive the punishing terrain of the Atlantic Forest and the treacherous waters of the Parana River. Battling jaguars, pit vipers and venomous insects on land and piranhas, caiman and raging currents in the water, the expedition faces continuous setbacks. Pushed to their emotional and physical limits, the team begins to wonder if the treasure is cursed due to its tangled and bloody history. The Jesuits and Guarani, custodians of the original loot through the 1700s, were continuously relocating the precious riches. In order to solve crucial historical clues, the team must design ingenious contraptions, deploy state of the art treasure hunting tools and lean on local intel. The more they follow the ancient trail of blood, the deeper they head into the most remote and dangerous parts of South America. In this uncharted realm, the team's odds of tracking down the priceless treasure are greater than ever before. But their chances of surviving the quest unscathed are next to none. Season 3 of TREASURE QUEST: SNAKE ISLAND premiered on Friday, August 24, 2018 at 9pm ET/PT on Discovery. This season, veteran treasure hunter Shawn Cowles, tech specialist Jeremy Whalen, and demolitions expert Jack Peters set out to Bolivia in search of the biggest land find treasure in history - the legendary Sacambaya Treasure, reportedly worth two billion dollars. But perilous weather conditions and dangers of altitude sickness, wild mountain lions, landslides, Jesuit booby traps and even blood sucking vampire bats stand in the way of unearthing the long-hidden riches. Over the last three centuries, many explorers from all around the world have made the journey to unearth this billion-dollar treasure, but have been met with misfortune and death. The last man alive to have hunted for this fortune, Johnny Irwin, provides the TREASURE QUEST team with a crucial lead from his own expedition - after years of research, he has a new theory about the treasure's whereabouts. Armed with cutting-edge technology, heavy equipment and vital intel from past explorers, this new team is better equipped to unearth these legendary riches than anyone before them. In "Death Road to Fortune," this season's quest begins with a lead that points the treasure hunting team to an old and long-abandoned Jesuit monastery. To get there, the team must travel through Yungas Road, infamously known as "Death Road" because it has more fatalities each year than any other road in the world. Mere miles before they reach their destination, a landslide forces the team to stop dead in their tracks and reroute their journey to safety. Will this end the team's trek to the treasure, or will their knowledge and expertise take them through to the end?
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On Friday, October 5, 2018 at 9pm ET/PT, Discovery premiered the Season 3 finale of TREASURE QUEST: SNAKE ISLAND. In the season ender, "Payday," the team search the massive tunnel, but with the valley on the verge of flooding, they're forced to put their lives at risk; their risk pays off big, placing them on the threshold of solving the 300-year-old Sacambaya mystery.