You mentioned most of what you do as a professional treasure hunter is illegal. Can you explain?
Because so much land is private or government owned property, I am often involved in trespassing. Furthermore, national and state salvage and recovery laws, which cover removing most, if not all, lost and buried treasures, are often restrictive. In most cases they don’t allow the finder to keep anything. These laws did not exist several years ago. When politicians and other lawmakers saw how much wealth was being recovered from lost and buried caches, they decided they should get some of it and began developing those laws.
If one finds and removes an historic treasure cache from private or government owned property without permission, it is technically stealing. For example, many lost and buried caches in this country are now located within the borders of national and state lands such as parks, wildlife areas, and historical sites. In almost every case, treasure hunting on these lands is illegal and fines and punishments are severe.
If one locates treasure in a foreign country and returns with it to the United States without declaring it, it becomes smuggling. The chances are if you declare what you find and recover, it will be confiscated. Other countries do not want their wealth, historical or otherwise, carried away to some other nation any more than the United States wants its treasures taken elsewhere.