PHOTOS – Colombia to Recover ‘Holy Grail of Shipwrecks’ with $20 Billion Treasure Trove

Spanish Galleon
Bettmann via Getty
Amy Furr

Colombia is hoping to recover as quickly as possible what has been called the “Holy Grail of shipwrecks” from the Caribbean Sea.

President Gustavo Petro recently instructed his administration to exhume the Spanish galleon known as the San José as soon as the project can move forward, the New York Post reported Sunday.

An underwater robot was part of a team that discovered the ship, which sank off the coast of Colombia more than 300 years ago, according to Breitbart News.

In June 2022, the Maritime Executive detailed the shipwreck’s history:

On May 28, 1708, the Spanish Navy galleons San Jose, San Joaquin and Santa Cruz set sail from Portobelo [in Panama] to Cartagena [in Colombia], accompanied by 14 merchant vessels. San Jose was carrying an estimated seven million gold pesos. On June 8, they were set upon by four Royal Navy warships. The largest, HMS Expedition, engaged San Jose at close range. San Jose exploded after about an hour and a half of fighting, taking her gold and almost all of her 600-man crew to the bottom. Santa Cruz was captured and San Joaquin escaped to safety in Cartagena’s harbor.

Now, Petro wants the ship exhumed before his term ends in 2026. He has since asked for a public-private ownership effort to make the project a reality.

But who owns the ship is still the big question. For now, its treasure, reportedly worth between $4 billion and $20 billion, lies on the sea bottom, a lawsuit says.

Video footage posted in December 2015 shows vases, cannons, and coins lying on the ocean floor at the site:

“The crux of the issue appears to revolve around who is believed to have found it,” the Post article said.

Its location was a mystery for years until 1981 when “US company Glocca Morra claimed it discovered the lost treasure and turned over its coordinates to Colombia with the promise it would receive half the fortune when recovered,” the report said.

Former Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos later claimed his navy officials found it in a different area.

“Colombia has never released the coordinates of the ship’s final resting place, but Glocca Morra — now called Sea Search Armada — believes the country found part of the same debris field in 2015 that it first discovered 34 years earlier,” the Post article continued.

Now the company has taken legal action against the Colombian government and wants a half share of the treasure.

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