Colombia’s president wants to raise the wreck of a 300-year-old Spanish galleon with up to $20 billion worth of treasure on board before his term ends in three years.
The British Royal Navy sank the three-masted, 64-gun galleon San José on June 8, 1708, during the War of the Spanish Succession, in the Caribbean off the coast of Colombia. It had 600 men on board, as well as 200 tons of gold, silver and emeralds, plus Chinese porcelain and pottery.
The exact location of the treasure, which is known as “the Holy Grail of shipwrecks,” was not known, until Glocca Morra, a U.S. salvage company said it had found it in 1981. It then gave the Colombian government the coordinates of the wreck, in exchange for an agreement that it would receive half the treasure on board. The treasure is estimated to be worth $20 billion today.
But the story gets a bit murky, because in 2015 the Colombian government said it had found the San José in a different location, and it made video of the wreck. The government has kept the location a state secret, but Sea Search Armada, which succeeded Glocca Morra, said it was in the same spot as the earlier coordinates. It is now suing the Colombian government for $10 billion, or half the treasure.
Meanwhile, Spain and Bolivia’s indigenous people, the Qhara Qhara, also claim the treasure is theirs. Spain, because it was their ship, the Qhara Qhara because they say the Spanish forced them to mine the precious metals from their land.
Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, has ordered his government to work with a public-private organization to raise the wreck before his term ends in 2026.
Read more at https://news.sky.com/story/san-jose-galleon-holy-grail-of-shipwrecks-with-16bn-treasure-haul-to-be-exhumed-off-colombian-coast-13001926#:~:text=The%20Spanish%20galleon%20San%20Jose,his%20term%20ends%20in%202026 and see the video below:
