--- alias: - Bunker and Herbert Hunt category: Business & Finance created: 2025-08-05 location: Dallas, Texas summary: Nelson Bunker, William Herbert, and Lamar Hunt, the sons of H.L. Hunt's first family, who held Placid Oil and Penrod Drilling in trust and were found liable in 1988 for manipulating the silver market. tags: - Person - HuntBrothers - Oil - SilverThursday - Dallas updated: 2026-09-21 --- The Hunt brothers were [Nelson Bunker Hunt](/people/nelson-bunker-hunt/) (1926 to 2014), [William Herbert Hunt](/people/william-herbert-hunt/) (1929 to 2024), and [Lamar Hunt](/people/lamar-hunt/) (1932 to 2006), the three younger sons of the [Dallas](/places/dallas-texas/) oil producer [H.L. Hunt](/people/hl-hunt/) and his first wife, [Lyda Bunker Hunt](/people/lyda-bunker-hunt/). Their father placed [Placid Oil Company](/organizations/placid-oil-company/) in trusts for the first family in 1935 and created personal trusts for each of them in 1936. When he died in 1974 his will left [Hunt Oil](/organizations/hunt-oil-company/) to his third wife, and in 1975 the brothers took Hunt Energy in a division negotiated with their half-brother [Ray Hunt](/people/ray-hunt/).[^1][^2] Bunker and Herbert Hunt were indicted in 1973 for wiretapping their father's aides and in 1975 for obstruction of justice. In April 1976 the charge against Herbert was dropped, and Bunker pleaded nolo contendere to a lesser charge and paid a fine of 1,000 dollars.[^3] In 1979 they formed the International Metals Investment Company in Bermuda with Saudi partners and accumulated about 200 million ounces of silver. The market broke on March 27, 1980, and all three brothers guaranteed a 1.1 billion dollar bank loan to Placid. A federal jury in [New York](/places/new-york-city/) found the three liable to the Peruvian company [Minpeco](/organizations/minpeco/) in August 1988 for more than 132 million dollars. Placid entered bankruptcy in 1986, and Bunker and Herbert personally in 1988. The 1936 trusts were not reached.[^2][^4][^5] The former Israeli intelligence officer [Ari Ben-Menashe](/people/ari-ben-menashe/) wrote that the Hunt brothers bought the rights to a solar energy system from [Yaacov Meridor](/people/yaacov-meridor/) and a Romanian expatriate for two million dollars, that the system was a fraud, and that [Joe Peeples](/people/joe-peeples/) went to jail over it.[^6] [^1]: Palmer, Jerrell Dean. "Hunt, Haroldson Lafayette," *Handbook of Texas Online,* Texas State Historical Association. https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/hunt-haroldson-lafayette [^2]: Gwynne, S.C. "Bunker Hunt," *Texas Monthly,* September 2001. https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/bunker-hunt/ [^3]: Hurt, Harry, III. *Texas Rich: The Hunt Dynasty from the Early Oil Days through the Silver Crash*. W.W. Norton, 1981, pp. 356-359. [^4]: Minpeco, S.A. v. Hunt, 718 F. Supp. 168 (S.D.N.Y. 1989). [^5]: McFadden, Robert D. "Nelson Bunker Hunt, 88, Oil Tycoon With a Texas-Size Presence, Dies," *The New York Times,* October 22, 2014. [^6]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network*. TrineDay, 1992.