Discussions continue over shipwreck containing 570 billion Turkish lira treasure

A 300-year-old shipwreck containing sunken treasure worth billions of lire is finally being recovered from its location, but no one knows who will own the wealth it contains.

The Spanish galleon San José sank in 1708 after its gunpowder stores exploded during a battle with the English in the War of the Spanish Succession. Only 11 of the 600-person crew of the three-masted, 62-gun ship survived.

However, in addition to the people, along with the ship, a hidden treasure of gold, silver and emeralds also sank to the bottom of the ocean. The exact location of the sunken treasure remained a mystery for centuries, leading to San Jose being referred to as the “bowl of shipwrecks.”

But in 2015, the Colombian government announced that a team of navy divers had found the remains at the bottom of the Caribbean Sea. The following year, another team of divers took incredible photographs documenting the ship’s preserved artifacts, including gold bars and coins, ceramics, pottery, and more.

The Colombian government is stepping up its efforts to save what remains of the ship and says it plans to remove it from the seabed before President Gustavo Petro’s term ends in 2026. However, they also stated that there is currently a major fight over the ownership of the wreck and the valuable treasure it contains.

THERE IS MORE THAN ONE SUITABLE

The American company Glocca Morra claims that it found the site of the shipwreck in 1981 and handed over the coordinates to the Colombian government under the agreement that it would receive half of the fortune when it was recovered. According to the lawsuit filed by the company, the value of the ship’s treasure ranges between $4 billion and $20 billion.

They are now suing the Colombian government for half of the treasury under the US-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement, Bloomberg reports. The Colombians, for their part, claim that they could not find the shipwreck when they searched the coordinates given to them by the company, now called Sea Search Armada.

The government never revealed the actual location of the remains, but classified their whereabouts as a state secret. However, Sea Search Armada claims the wreckage was found in the area of ​​the wreckage it discovered 34 years ago.

Meanwhile, ownership of the wreck and treasure is also disputed by the indigenous people of Spain and Bolivia, the Qhara Qhara.

Because the ship belonged to the Spanish navy when it was sunk by British warships, Spain claims ownership of the wreck and its contents and says UNESCO should inspect the heritage site, the BBC reported.

However, according to CBS News, the people of Qhara Qhara say that their ancestors were forced to extract ship’s treasure from the world’s largest silver mine in the 16th century, so this treasure should belong to them.