It’s the ultimate jackpot of the deep.
A treasure that has been out of reach for more than 300 years lies at the bottom of the ocean - billions in gold, silver, and emeralds, all aboard the Spanish galleon S . Sunk by the British off the coast of Colombia in 1708, it’s been hailed as the most valuable shipwreck in history. But while the treasure might now be in clear sight, the legal fight over who owns it is anything but murky.
For decades, a tug-of-war has been waged over the loot experts have called the "Holy Grail" of shipwrecks. and Spain both want it. As does the American salvage company, Sea Search Armada. Indigenous groups in South America say they have a right to it too. It is easy to see when the San José’s has been valued at more than £13.7 billion.
The debate is now tangled in legal knots at the Hague’s Permanent Court of Arbitration, with no one quite sure how it will all play out. Colombia insists the wreck should be raised and its relics displayed in a museum, while treasure hunters are more interested in its eye-watering value.
“The biggest treasure in the history of humanity,” claims Rahim Moloo, a lawyer for Sea Search Armada. “This treasure that sank with the ship included seven million pesos, 116 steel chests full of emeralds, and 30 million gold coins.”
But not everyone is dazzled by the galleon’s riches. Archaeologists argue that wrecks like this are better left undisturbed, noting that the San José is a watery grave for 600 men who went down with the ship. “It’s a great mess, and I see no easy way out of this,” admits Carla Rahn Phillips, historian and San José expert, as the legal tug-of-war drags on. “I don’t think there’s any way that everyone can be satisfied.”
The San José met its fate when the British, eager to plunder its riches, mistakenly fired a cannonball into the ship’s powder magazine, causing it to explode and sink within minutes. Its final resting place was long a mystery until a US salvage team, Glocca Mora (now Sea Search Armada), claimed to have found it in the 1980s. Negotiations with the Colombian government fell apart, sparking a legal row over who should get what.
In 2015, Bogotá officials announced that they had independently located the wreck in a different spot, dismissing the Americans’ claim entirely. Spain asserts the treasure remains their property, while indigenous groups from Bolivia and Peru argue it was stolen from their lands, the spoils of colonialism. “That wealth came from the mines of Potosí in the Bolivian highlands,” insists Samuel Flores, representing the Qhara Qhara people. “They owe us that debt.”
As legal battles rage, detailed footage of the wreck has been released, showing marine-encrusted cannons, porcelain plates, and gold coins scattered across the ocean floor - evidence, perhaps, of the vast fortune that awaits. Sea Search Armada estimates the cargo’s value to be up to $18 billion (£13.7 billion). “Seven million pesos, 116 chests full of emeralds, 30 million gold coins,” said Moloo.
But historians, like Phillips, are refusing to buy into the riches. “To me, it’s almost meaningless to try to come up with a number now,” she says. “The estimates of the treasure hunters, to me, they’re laughable.” The San José might be the crown jewel of shipwrecks, but it’s not alone.
According to the UN, some three million wrecks lie strewn across the ’s oceans, and when it comes to who owns them - or, more crucially, their treasures - it is unclear. The UN’s Convention on the Law of the Sea, adopted in 1982, is often called “the constitution of the oceans,” but it barely dives beyond the surface on shipwrecks.
A follow-up treaty in 2001 - the UNESCO Underwater Cultural Heritage Convention- attempts to make issues more straightforward. Still, many countries, including Colombia and the US, have refused to sign it, fearing it could weaken their claims to these submerged fortunes.
“The legal framework right now is neither clear nor comprehensive,” says Michail Risvas, a maritime lawyer from Southampton University. “International law does not have clear-cut answers.”
