300-year mystery ends as Colombia finds treasure galleon San Jose

The San Jose has remained submerged since it sank on June 8, 1708 off the coast of Cartagena even as a legal battle has raged in US, Colombia and Spain over who owns the rights to the sunken treasure.

The galleon was the main ship in a treasure fleet carrying gold, silver and other valuable items from Spain’s American colonies to King Philip V. Colombian Ministry of Culture/Handout via Reuters

Cartagena, Colombia // Colombia says it has found the shipwreck of a storied Spanish galleon laden with gold, silver and precious stones – in what may be the world’s largest sunken treasure, three centuries after it was sunk by the British in the Caribbean.

“This is the most valuable treasure that has been found in the history of humanity,” president Juan Manuel Santos declared on Saturday from the northern port city of Cartagena.

Mr Santos said the exact location of the galleon San Jose, and how it was discovered with the help of an international team of experts, was a state secret that he'd personally safeguard. The ship sank somewhere in the wide area off Colombia's Baru peninsula, south of Cartagena.

The discovery is the latest chapter in a saga that began three centuries ago, on June 8, 1708, when the galleon ship with 600 people aboard sank as it was trying to outrun a fleet of British warships attempting to take its cargo, as part of the War of Spanish Succession. Only a handful of the ship’s crew survived.

The ship has remained submerged ever since off the coast of Cartagena even as a legal battle has raged in US, Colombia and Spain over who owns the rights to the sunken treasure.

Treasure hunters had searched for the ship for decades, described by maritime experts as the holy grail of Spanish colonial shipwrecks.

The galleon was the main ship in a treasure fleet carrying gold, silver and other valuable items from Spain’s American colonies to King Philip V. It is believed to have been carrying 11 million gold coins and jewels from then Spanish-controlled colonies that could be worth billions of dollars if ever recovered.

According to US-based salvage company Sea Search Armada (SSA), the loot is estimated to be worth around US$2 billion (Dh7.35bn), its value having dropped significantly due to the falling price of silver.

SSA, which was owned by US investors, announced in 1982 that it had found the San Jose's resting place 700 feet below the water's surface.

Two years later, Colombia’s government overturned well-established maritime law that gives 50 per cent to whoever locates a shipwreck, slashing Sea Search’s take down to a 5 per cent “finder’s fee”.

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. Colombia’s supreme court has ordered the ship to be recovered before the international dispute over the fortune can be settled.

The San Jose has long been the source of fascination and popular legends.

A team of Colombian and foreign researchers, including a veteran of the group that discovered the wreck of the Titanic in 1985, studied winds and currents of the Caribbean 307 years ago and delved into colonial archives in Spain and Colombia searching for clues.

Experts have confirmed that they located the San Jose, which was lying on its side, identifying it by its unique bronze cannons with engraved dolphins.

“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.

There could be up to 1,000 shipwrecks off the Caribbean coast of Colombia, but of those only between six and 10 had a large cargo of treasures, anthropologist Fabian Sanabria said.

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

The discovery “is an unprecedented event for the country,” said Cartagena Mayor Dionisio Velez.

On Twitter, the issue was trending under #GaleonSanJose, as users of the one-to-many social network debated whether to return the loot to Spain, and made various estimates about its current value.