Galleon ‘With Huge Treasure Haul’ Found

“This has an enormous archaeological value for Colombia and for all of humanity”, Santos said, announcing that a museum will be built in Cartagena to showcase the discovery. The San José initially sank somewhere within the wide area off Colombia’s Baru peninsula, south of Cartagena.

Earlier this year, treasure hunters said they had found US$4.5 million of Spanish gold coins off the coast of Florida, part of another of King Philip’s treasure fleets shipwrecked in a hurricane while en route from Havana to Spain.

In 1982, Sea Search Armada, a salvage company owned by United States investors including the late actor Michael Landon and convicted Nixon White House adviser John Ehrlichman, announced it had found the San Jose’s resting place 700 feet below the water’s surface.

The ship, the San Jose, has been described as the holy grail of shipwrecks, carrying one of the richest treasure cargos ever to have been lost at sea.

Santos said that many details about the discovery need to remain under wraps and that the presidency was the only institution authorized to provide information about the find.

The ship was loaded with gold and silver from mines in Peru, with the intention to fund the Spanish War of Succession, which was fought from 1701 to 1714 between France and Austria over who would rule Spain.

Ownership of the ship’s treasure has been the subject of a long-running legal dispute. SSA sued Colombia in its own courts and the battle made it to the US courts, which eventually upheld Colombia’s ruling in 2011.

Depiction of a Spanish galleon taken by the Pirate Pierre le Grand near the coast of Hispaniola, in 1643.

Ernesto Montenegro, director of the Colombian Institute of…

Juan Manual Santos said the exact location of the Galleon San Jose and how it was discovered with the help of an global team of experts was a state secret that he would personally safeguard.

SSA and the government were partners back then and adhering to global custom, they agreed to split any proceeds.

National Maritime Museum This oil painting by Samuel Scott depicts the sinking of the San Jose galleon.

It is estimated that the San Jose is one of more than 1,000 galleons and merchant ships that sank along Colombia’s coral reefs over more than three centuries of colonial rule.

The biggest find, and the most sought after, was the San Jose, he said.