SPAIN:The Spanish government has begun legal action in a Florida court against an American maritime exploration company to determine the name and location of a wreck containing what is believed to be the largest haul of sunken treasure ever found.
Just over two weeks ago the Odyssey Marine Exploration company (OME) unveiled a trove of 17 tonnes of gold and silver coins, all in mint condition, and other gold and silver artefacts, the results of their search, codenamed Operation Black Swan, "somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean". Odyssey put a value of more than $500 million on its haul.
There have been rumours that the "somewhere in the Atlantic" was in reality an area off the Spanish coast in the Straits of Gibraltar. The Minister of Culture there, Carmen Conde, confirmed that Odyssey had authorisation from Spain and from the Junta de Andalucía (the regional authority), with the agreement of the British, to search for wreckage of the English ship Sussex, which sank in the straits in 1694 carrying more than nine tonnes of gold and silver coins from England to Italy.
Ms Conde said that as minister for culture of the junta, before she assumed the portfolio at national level in 2004, she had been closely involved in the process.
"They had permission to search for the wreck of the Sussex, but not to remove artefacts from the site," she said. "It is an area where more than 400 ships - probably containing the greatest quantity of sunken treasure in the world - are known to have foundered over the centuries."
It seems unlikely that the wreck discovered by Odyssey in Operation Black Swan was the Sussex, since the 17 tonnes taken to Florida is more than twice the nine tonnes known to have been on board that ship.
There have been reports in recent months that Odyssey vessels have been seen working in the straits and Civil Guard coast guards are studying their records of movements of ships to determine whether Odyssey was working in national or international waters.
Ms Conde said recently that she found it "suspicious" that the company's two search ships, equipped with sophisticated robot equipment, were moored in Gibraltar and nearby Morocco and that the haul was flown from Gibraltar under great secrecy and made public only when it had arrived in Tampa, Florida.
The minister said that if it could be proved that the treasure came from wrecks in Spanish territorial waters, then the company would be guilty of plunder and contraband.
Odyssey Maritime Exploration has denied its find was in Spanish waters.
Greg Stemm, its co-founder, said it had always acted according to salvage law.
"We were working outside the territorial waters and beyond the legal jurisdiction of any country," he said.