Colombia announces discovery of what could also be world’s largest sunken treasure

Colombia will build a museum to showcase artefacts found in the wreckage of a Spanish galleon discovered near the historic Caribbean port city of Cartagena, President Juan Manuel Santos said on Saturday.

Santos said the discovery came “at sunrise last Friday, Nov. 27” during an operation of the Colombian Anthropology and History Institute, with the participation of the Colombian navy and several global scientists.

The wreck of a Spanish galleon laden with treasure has been found 300 years after it was sunk by the British, sparking speculation that it contains the most valuable haul ever found on the seabed.

She never arrived. She was sunk after a 90-minute battle with HMS Expedition, part of a four-ship squadron hunting the Spanish treasure fleet in the southern Caribbean.

Shortly afterward, however, the government cast doubts on Sea Search Armada’s claim, saying an independent team of investigators couldn’t find evidence of a shipwreck at the coordinates provided by the company.

Indeed, the legal dispute is seemingly as dramatic as the sinking of San Jose itself, which was destroyed in 1708 by British warships thwarting Spain’s delivery of New World riches. SSA said in 1981 it had located the area in which the ship sank.

Silver coins recovered from the San Jose.

“Without a doubt, without room for any doubt, we have found, 307 years after it sank, the San Jose galleon”, Santos said.

SSA has been claiming billions of dollars for breach of contract from the Colombian government, but in 2011 an American court ruled that the galleon was the property of the Colombian state. Anything else would be halved between the salvage company and Colombia.

In Colombian courts, SSA won a lawsuit claiming the new law was unconstitutional, and the Circuit Court of Barranquilla ruled the treasures of the San Jose should be split 50-50 between the government and SSA, the firm said.

The treasure that went down with it is estimated to be worth between around three-and-a-half to fifteen-and-a-half billion euros. In the footage English-speaking crew members aboard a Colombian naval ship can be seen launching the underwater vehicle into the ocean.

He said the find “constitutes one of the greatest – if not the biggest, as some say – findings and identification of underwater heritage in the history of humanity”.

Few government spokespeople will be able to speak further on the galleon until more investigations are completed, Santos said.