Spain Files Suit To Claim Sunken Treasure

Florida Deep-Sea Exploration Crew Found Estimated $500 Million, 19th-Century Booty

(AP)  Spain laid formal claim Thursday to a shipwreck that yielded an estimated $500 million in treasure, saying it has proof the vessel is Spanish and demanding that a Florida deep-sea exploration firm that recovered the booty give it all back.

Culture Ministry officials and James Goold, a Washington-based lawyer who represents the Spanish government, said the 19th-century shipwreck at the heart of a year-old dispute with Odyssey Marine Exploration of Tampa is without a doubt the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes. The Spanish warship was sunk by the British navy southwest of Portugal in 1804 with more than 200 people on board.

"We are talking about the remains of a Spanish navy vessel, and the human remains of Spanish naval servicemen who died on board which have been illegally disturbed," said ministry director general Jose Jimenez.

"It is the property of the Spanish navy, government and people, and we want it all back," said Teodoro de Leste Contreras, a navy admiral who runs a naval museum owned by the Culture Ministry.

The Spanish government filed evidence Thursday backing up its claim with a U.S. federal judge hearing the case in Tampa.

Goold said U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Pizzo will now convene the two parties to review the case before deciding who gets to keep the treasure, now held in a warehouse somewhere in Tampa.

Goold said he expected Odyssey would keep "not a penny" of the salvage. Odyssey officials have said they believe the court will award them the majority of the treasure, as it was found by Odyssey.

Odyssey officials maintain there isn't enough evidence to prove the vessel is the Mercedes, mainly because there is no hull. They said they have found only cargo from a shipwreck, not the actual vessel, according to a statement the company released Thursday.

Odyssey officials said they are surprised the Spanish government has conclusively said "the "Black Swan" treasure is from the Mercedes after viewing site photomosaics and video that show no hull, ballast pile, keel or vessel, and only a statistically insignificant sample of the coins from the site," the statement said.

Spain argues the entire treasure should be returned to it because naval vessels never cease to be the property of the nation that flagged them, regardless of where they lay, under the principle of sovereign immunity, Goold said.

"Spain has not abandoned or otherwise relinquished in any way its ownership of Mercedes," Spain argued in Thursday's court filing.

If the coins are found to be from the Mercedes, Odyssey officials said "it is up to the U.S. District Court to determine the final disposition of the "Black Swan" treasure," according to the statement.

Odyssey announced in May 2007 it had discovered the wreck in the Atlantic and raised 500,000 silver coins and other artifacts worth an estimated $500 million. It said at the time it did not know what ship it was. Odyssey flew the booty back to Tampa without Spain's knowledge from an airport on the British colony of Gibraltar on Spain's southwestern tip.

Spain went to the U.S. federal court claiming ownership of the treasure if it turned out to be connected to the country's national heritage.

Goold said Spain's evidence - based on material provided by Odyssey under court order - proved the ship and cargo were definitely Spanish property.

Naval and coin experts said they had absolute proof Odyssey's salvage proceeded from the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, which exploded and sank in a naval battle as it sailed back to Spain from South America.

The coins aboard the ship included gold doubloons or "pieces of eight" minted in 1803 in Lima, Peru, bearing the image of Spain's King Carlos IV, said ministry coin expert Carmen Marcos.

In its filing with the U.S. court, Spain said: "Analysis of location information from multiple sources confirms the location on the seabed from which Odyssey took coins and other artifacts is the site of Mercedes."

Artifacts on the seabed, and their distribution and other characteristics, as well as artifacts taken by Odyssey "further identify the site as the remains of Mercedes," the Spanish filing says.

Odyssey had sought to kept private its information on the ship, including its identity. Pizzo last month forced the company to turn over its information and Odyssey said the ship was probably the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes.

[lfmontes]

Another good argument against Oddysey and its advocators as posted by an American somewhere else:

"A warship belongs to the nation under which flag sailed ad infinitum unless the owner expressely renounces to this right. So vessels like USS Yorktown or USS Arizona belong to the US Navy forever although they are sunken. But following the pirate way of thinking showed by these guys perhaps some company could go and loot them, then auction the plundered goods to some wealthy magnates.

This is not %u201Cexploration%u201D, this is a bunch of grave robbers destroying archaeological sites in the name of greed. And if the USA had to restore all the stolen property of the Native Northamericans they will end up back in Britain. Or did the land have no owner when George Washington and his friends settled there in their villas"

By the way, Spain will give back the treasury to the Indians ( which ones, the Incas, the Aztecs, the tribes they had subjugated or the previous ones whoever they were? when the US will give back all its territory to the native North American Indians ( who were well documented and were subjects to no one) and to Mexico( an independent country by the time the US stole a big part of its territory. %uFF24one deal? if not shut up.

[lfmontes]

A los hispanos que leen este blog
la conquista ya es historia. Si los indios precolombinos hubieran sido derrotados por los anglos ahora no existiria ni un solo hispano...nos habrian exterminado o reducido al apartheid. Mirad el ejemplo de Australia o Africa del SUr. Lo que los hispanos tenemos que hacer es unirnos, producir, hacer ciencia y ser mas poderosos que los anglos para darle la vuelta a la historia.

[lfmontes]

To rushlimpdrug and the other haters of Spain
If someone has to give back something those are the anglos who went to North America and really exterminated the Indian population there ( I guess just to make Western movies out of it) And you did the same with the natives in Canada, Australia and whenever you went.
Then of course you declared an illegal war against Mexico and got 40% of its territory ( are you going to give it back?)
And to those who say that Spain wiped out the native population in South America...You are either ignorant or liars...Go to Mexico, Peru, Ecuador or Paraguay and you will see in a single village more Indians than in the entire US...
Contrary to your pathetic lies, Spain did care for the Indians. The first laws to protect them date back to 1541. The first American universities where Indians awere allowed were opened in Santo Domingo and Lima in 1535. Garcilaso de la Vega, the son of an Inca princess is still celebrated as one of the main writers in Spanish literaty history...Is there any North American Indian who is included in English literary history?
And yes, the conquistadores were military heroes who defeated totalitarian Empires with their superior tactics,weapons and using their political skills to turn the Indian masses against their rulers... The reason why the anglos hate them is because they were Spanish and Catholic and not blonds and protestant.

[shipwreksoul]

Spain may be entitled to it the treasure? But what after so many years they never went to look for it themselves now they want to acquire possession? I don''t know?
Maybe they should go to www.shipwrecksoul.blogspot.com
for answers to the lost treasure that Spain wants to have?

[klingon69]

If just a few hundred Spaniards conquered them it was because they were received as liberators by the poor Indian masses that had suffered the tyranny of the precolumbian empires for centuries.
Posted by lfmontes at 11:56 AM : May 09, 2008
Yes, and it couldn''t be because they were first percieved as gods, had gun powder, cannon, armor, and brought over strange diseases none of the natives had ever encountered, that just about wiped out the population?

[rushlimpdrug]

If just a few hundred Spaniards conquered them it was because they were received as liberators by the poor Indian masses that had suffered the tyranny of the precolumbian empires for centuries.
Posted by lfmontes at 03:06 AM


Grow a brain.
Spanish brought cheap african labor because they
couldn''t kill of or make all the natives work
for nothing.

Your posts is soooo pathetically stupid.

[downsteamjim]

Why did the Spaniard file a suit? So he could be a ''sharp'' dresser.

[johnshaft4]

Why didn''t Spain get off their tails and go find it themselves?

[bsimon2007]

But hey, if were just human remains, and not $500m in golden treasure, I''m SURE they''d still be suing and saber-rattling...

[greatdrivew]

Spain is claiming this treasure?

Gee, I wonder who Spain stole it from in the first place?

Better yet, I wonder when all the South American countries that were looted by Spain will seek to have all their gold returned to them - with interest?

[thgdriver]

If a person picks up an aluminum can sitting on the side of the road to recycle it, is that person stealing?

Posted by downsteamjim

According to the thieving Spanish if it was found in a rusted out long gone Chrysler "Cordoba" it''s theirs. LOL!!

[thgdriver]

Another way out of this may be to make a deal with the thieving Spanish. This could wind up in the courts for 10 or more years. The lawyers will get rich for sure. I say offer the Spanish Bastardds what it will cost all in the court system and every body goes home rich.

[thgdriver]

The ship was returning from South America when it was sunk by the British Navy.

If the treasure belongs to anyone, it would be whoever the Spanish "STOLE" it from in the Americas.

If the Spanish wanted it they should have looked for it long ago. They did not. It''s finders keepers if I am the judge.

[trenticus-2009]

If I were the founder of these treasures and I was ordered to give it back, I would either demand a salvaging fee OR dump it all back where I found it and let Spain go get it.

[downsteamjim]

To SHIPWRECKSOUL: The land of the American Mammoth.

[shipwreksoul]

Does this mean that the land of the American Indians can be reclaimed?

[pjh822]

They should have taken it to their local police department and then reclaim it after one year if Spain didn''t LOL

[downsteamjim]

If a person picks up an aluminum can sitting on the side of the road to recycle it, is that person stealing?

[downsteamjim]

If those wacky Indians hadn''t come to the new World to destroy the environment and drive the mammoths, mastodons, micky mouse etc to extinction, left all this gold, silver, and jewels in the ground, caused global warming that ended the ice age; none of this would have happened.

[pjh822]

How fair does Spain think it will be treated when this case is being presided over by an American judge?