Colombia says it’s found Spanish ship carrying lost treasure

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. In the early 1980s, SSA and Bogota were partners in the hunt for the ship and had agreed to split the treasure.

The Spanish galleon was found “near Colombia’s Caribbean coast, in our waters, in an archaeological site that turned out to hold the flagship San Jose“.

This is the first look at the wreck of a Spanish galleon that sank off the coast of Cartagena that is thought be laden with with emeralds and gold and silver coins.

Some 600 people died in the shipwreck, Santos said – adding that Colombia would build a museum to showcase the artefacts.

“This constitutes one of the greatest – if not the biggest, as some say – discoveries of submerged patrimony in the history of mankind”, said Santos during a press conference on Saturday in Cartagena.

Its cargo was to be shipped to Spain’s king to help finance the war against the British when it was sunk in June 1708.

Although they found plenty of other wrecks, the San Jose’s location had remained a mystery until now.

The president did not mention, however, the long-standing legal battle over the wreck of the San Jose and US-based salvage firm Sea Search Armada (SSA).

A lawsuit by the American investors in a federal court in Washington was dismissed in 2011 and the ruling was affirmed on appeal two years later.

At least five other shipwrecks were found when searching the ocean floor.

“The amount and type of the material leave no doubt of the identity” of the shipwreck, said Ernesto Montenegro, head of the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History.

Nautical Historian Daniel de Narvaez Mcallister told El Espectador newspaper that the San Jose is the holy grail for treasure hunters because it was carrying the accumulation of six years worth of gold and silver being sent back to Spain – making it the most valuable shipwreck in the Western Hemisphere.

The discovery “is an unprecedented event for the country”, said Cartagena Mayor Dionisio Velez. Their current value is estimated at between $NZ6 and $25 billion.