However, it was his brazen looting of the Portuguese great galleonNossa Senhora do Cabothat sealed his fate.
Instead, he boasted of having hidden it, taunting authorities and onlookers alike.
The island Mahe, Seychelles, where Olivier Levasseurs treasure is believed to lay hidden.
Photo credit:Olivier Levasseur/Flickr
Olivier Levasseur was born into a privileged bourgeois family in Calais in 1688.
Thanks to his excellent education, Levasseur could have led a respectable life as an architect.
The spoils they uncovered were beyond comprehensiona veritable trove of riches.
He was captured and sentenced to death.
But the instructions were a cipher.
This absence has led modern historians of piracy to dismiss the legend as a product of 20th-century fiction.
The cryptogram of Olivier Levasseur.
There is, however, one man who believe the legend to be true.
His father, Reginald Herbert Cruise-Wilkins, did the same for 27 years until his death in 1977.
Hes also found bones, pistols, musket balls and statuettes.
John believes he is now inches away from the treasure, having identified a cavern as the treasure site.
However, the caverns opening is blocked by boulders and can only be accessed by an underwater tunnel.
John also believes that the shrewd pirate had placed booby traps over the treasure.
John has already invested considerable time and effort into preparing the site for excavation.
But without the license, his work could not commence.
Olivier Levasseurs grave in Saint-Paul, Reunion.
Photo credit:Joran Kortmann/Wikimedia Commons
