Treasure returns to Spain after 200 years
Source: Agencies |
February 26, 2012, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
TWO military planes laden with 17 tons of silver and gold coins scooped up from a Spanish warship that sank during a 1804 gunbattle landed in Spain yesterday, ending a 200-year odyssey that took the treasure from an ocean floor to Florida courtrooms.
The planes landed with the 594,000 coins and other artifacts retrieved after a five-year legal wrangle with the Florida-based salvage company Odyssey Marine Exploration, which had taken the haul to the US in May 2007.
The treasure will be transported to an undisclosed location, a report said.
The deep-sea explorers found the treasure in a shipwreck, believed to be Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, off Portugal's Atlantic coast. British warships had sunk it as it approached Spain as part of a fleet that had traveled from South America. The Mercedes was believed to have had 200 people aboard when it exploded and sank.
Odyssey made international headlines when it discovered the wreck, estimating the trove to be worth as much as US$500 million to collectors.
The Spanish government challenged Odyssey's ownership in US District Court soon after the coins were flown back to Tampa, relying on documents from its naval archive which listed Mercedes as a naval warship.
International treaties generally hold that warships sunk in battle are protected from treasure seekers. The Spanish government successfully argued it had never relinquished ownership of the ship or its contents.
In 2009, a US federal district court ordered the treasure returned.
The planes landed with the 594,000 coins and other artifacts retrieved after a five-year legal wrangle with the Florida-based salvage company Odyssey Marine Exploration, which had taken the haul to the US in May 2007.
The treasure will be transported to an undisclosed location, a report said.
The deep-sea explorers found the treasure in a shipwreck, believed to be Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, off Portugal's Atlantic coast. British warships had sunk it as it approached Spain as part of a fleet that had traveled from South America. The Mercedes was believed to have had 200 people aboard when it exploded and sank.
Odyssey made international headlines when it discovered the wreck, estimating the trove to be worth as much as US$500 million to collectors.
The Spanish government challenged Odyssey's ownership in US District Court soon after the coins were flown back to Tampa, relying on documents from its naval archive which listed Mercedes as a naval warship.
International treaties generally hold that warships sunk in battle are protected from treasure seekers. The Spanish government successfully argued it had never relinquished ownership of the ship or its contents.
In 2009, a US federal district court ordered the treasure returned.
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