Tonight on CBS NCIS: Sydney airs with an all-new Tuesday, December 2, 2025, season 3 episode 7 called, “Gold Digger” and we have your weekly NCIS: Sydney recap below.
In tonight’s NCIS season 3 episode 7, “Gold Digger” as per the CBS synopsis, “When a U.S. naval officer is arrested for murder while trying to destroy a treasure map, the team must navigate jurisdictional politics to uncover the truth while racing to find the fabled “Yamashita’s Gold.”
So make sure to bookmark this spot and come back between 10:00 PM – 11:00 PM ET for our NCIS Sydney recap. While you wait for the recap make sure to check out all our NCIS recaps, spoilers, news & more, right here!
Tonight’s NCIS: Sydney Recap begins now – Refresh Page often to get the most current updates!
IN tonight’s NCIS Sydney, there was a bit of a jurisdictional issue when an American sailor was accused of murder. Chief Petty Officer Joel Corbel was found covered in blood, he ran when cops tried to question about said blood, and he assaulted the cop that soon arrested him.
He did everything wrong. It was that time of the season. The cop was supposed to do family photos with a professional. He wanted to hold onto Joel just out of spite. It didn’t help that Joel wasn’t talking and so NCIS had their hands full with this one. They came in. They tried to talk to Joel. And he was refusing to say where the blood came from.
Still, NCIS got him moved.
Joel tried to burn something upon his arrest. The item itself only got singed. There was enough left for Blue to figure out what it was. It was a treasure map. Or half of it. Allegedly, it was the map to Yamashita’s gold.
There was a general by the name back in WWII who stole from the Australians intending to send it to back to Japan. Then the war was lost. The gold was hidden somewhere nearby. The map could potentially find it and it helped introduce Evie to one of her idols. His name is Vinny Reeves. He was the host of a tv show called “Fortune Tracker”.
It was like Indiana Jones of the modern times. The host also happens to be very attractive. Evie has such a crush on him and this map brought about an introduction between them.
The map was part of old papers as well as journals up for auction. They disappeared before the auction could go through. There were plenty of reasons to believe that maybe one of the bidders stole the items to find the treasure first. The gold was rumored to be worth somewhere in the billions. Vinny naturally was one of the bidders.
But someone who didn’t bid was Joel. Joel was in Australia visiting his father. His father retired from the military to go into private contract work. He then retired from that to enjoy full retirement. He was enjoying life in Australia when his son came for a visit. Joel even left behind his pregnant wife, Nicole.
It was just supposed to be a visit and so what happened to change that? NCIS couldn’t get into contact with Joel’s father. Erik Corbel has seemingly gone dark or worse. Nicole told them that whatever was wrong was caused by Erik. Not that Joel would say. Evie then thought their best bet was Vinny.
Evie had to bring along Deshawn. He was her partner after all. He was a little intimidated by meeting Vinny. He saw Vinny’s intro of his show back at the office and he felt the man was too comfortable wearing scantily clad clothing.
Only Vinny was very knowledgeable. He said the gold was found by an Australian diplomat back in the day. He brought the gold to Australia where he intended to leave it for his two children. There was one problem. The kids hated each other and their father was trying to fix it.
Their father thought that by forcing them to work together that they could finally get over their differences. He buried the gold. He cut the map to it in half with each sibling getting a half.
If they worked together, they’d get the gold. They just hated each other too much because the gold was never found. Or at least that’s the myth behind the tale. Vinny told Evie all about it. He mentioned the bidding war. He had nothing else to give and that’s when Blue found something. Blue determined that Joel was at an old railway station a few blocks away from where he got arrested by State police.
Mackey went there with JD. They ran into the cop that Joel punched. He claimed he was doing due diligence when really he was up to something else. He was secretly working the case. It was all of three of them that ended up finding the body. The body was of a Japanese national named Kenji Takahata.
He came to Australia with his wife. They also bid on the map. There was no gun at the scene. Nor was it found on Joel. There was even worse news. The cop Joel punched got permission to run a reciprocal investigation of the homicide. Whatever that means.
Now was the time for Joel to talk. Joel didn’t have a great relationship with his father. Nicole went as far as saying that Erik never loved Joel. Joel kept hoping to change that and now his father was dying. Erik asked for a meeting that might be their last time ever seeing each other. Joel shows up hoping for quality time.
He instead got roped into a treasure hunt. It’s the only reason Erik contacted him. Joel was a code breaker for the navy. He has eidetic memory and could decipher the map that Erik stole from the auction house.
With Joel finally talking and even assisting (now that he doesn’t want to be framed for murder), they found his father. Erik was perfectly alright. He met up with Kenji hoping to get the other half of the map.
They intended to split the gold between themselves. Erik pretended like he was doing this for his family when the truth is he’s not dying. He made up some sob story to force Joel into helping him before abandoning Joel the moment things got tough. Someone else was after the gold. They killed Kenji and nearly killed Joel.
Erik claims that the Black Falcon Group was behind it. They were dangerous treasure seekers. They were even wanted by Interpol for their illegal actions in several countries and Australian State Police were looking for them. They were a little too late because one of them was staring NCIS right in the face.
Kenji’s wife that they met was in fact his business partner. She works for Black Falcon Group. She was wanted by Interpol. Erick brought Joel into something way over his head. Joel finally realized his father just doesn’t love him. He was intending on giving up on him when he got abducted.
He got taken by Yumi and her team. Joel’s supercharger memory ensured he memorized his dad’s half of the map. That was what they truly wanted. They just didn’t have Blue. Blue figured out where the treasure was hidden with just the half that Joel drew for them from memory. It was located at an old facility.
Its since fallen into disrepair. NCIS went there and they rescued Joel. They also left their kidnappers up to their new best friend the beaten up cop. They were so close that they figured they might as well follow the map.
They found the hidden location, but not the gold. Someone had already taken it. It turns out that Vinny the fortune hunter had killed Kenji to get his half and that he stole the gold.
He’s now going away for murder. Evie didn’t mind arresting him in the end. She lost that crush on him when he was revealed to be a scumbag.
The charges for assaulting a cop got dropped so Joel saw his father right before he returned to the states. The whole thing reminded JD about how hard it is to be a dad. He had to give up joint custody because his crazy work hours wasn’t conducive to being a part of his son’s life. His ex now has full custody.
He sees him every second weekend. He wanted to make the next one special by buying a water gun from his childhood. Only he gave it to Trigger to outfit and Trigger didn’t know the toy was meant for a child. He ended up turning it into a weapon. One that JD couldn’t gift Jack now.
Detective Senior Constable Ed Pickering gave it a spin and it blackened his other eye from the kickback – there goes the family photos.
THE END!