I'm in the Wrong Business, Part 622: "‘Holy Grail of Shipwrecks’ Found by Colombia Could be Worth $17 billion"
From MarketWatch:
“Great news: We have found the Galleon San Jose.”
Thus what
could be the biggest finding of a sunken treasure hoard in years was
made by the government of Colombia in a single Twitter message on Friday
evening. President Juan Manuel Santos said the remains of Spanish
galleon San Jose, which sunk 307 years ago, has been located near the
coast of Caribbean port city Cartegena.
What’s more, the ship was carrying gold, silver, gems and jewels that
some estimate could be worth as much as $17 billion. In a news
conference on Saturday, Santos said the government would build a museum
to display the findings, with sonar images so far showing cannons, arms,
ceramics and other artifacts, according to Reuters.
The
Galleon San Jose was blown up and sank in June 1708 during a naval
confrontation with the British as part of the War of Spanish Succession,
and some 600 lives were believed to have been lost. It was part of a
fleet that was sailing from Portobelo to Cartegena, and the ship was
believed to be carrying 7 to 11 million pesos, worth some $4 billion to
$17 billion, wrote Rick Spilman, author, sailor and maritime history
enthusiast, in a 2012 post for The Old Salt Blog.
Spilman
said that the Galleon San Jose is often referred to as the “Holy Grail
of Ship Wrecks.” But it has also been part of a years-long lengthy
litigation battle between the government of Colombia and U.S. salvage
company Sea Search Armada. SSA and Colombia had agreed to a division of
any findings until the country passed a law giving itself all rights to
the treasure. SSA sued Colombia in its own courts and the battle made it
to the U.S. courts, which eventually upheld Colombia’s ruling in 2011.
On its Facebook page,
SSA says it is managed by IOTA Partners, a U.S. limited partnership
formed in 1988 to “provide management and working capital to pursue the
rights of SSA investors in the face of efforts by the Government of
Colombia to illegally confiscate SSA’s finds.” Attempts to reach SSA for
comment were unsuccessful....MORE
