‘Holy Grail of shipwrecks’ to be exhumed off Colombia with $31b sunken treasure

A huge blue has erupted over a sunken 16th century galleon that could be worth billions, which one nation wants to raise from the depths.

The Latin American nation of Colombia is hoping to expedite its mission to recover a three-century-old sunken treasure worth as much as $31 billion as the ownership of the fortune lies in legal limbo amid an ongoing court battle.

President Gustavo Petro ordered his administration to exhume the so-called “Holy Grail of shipwrecks” — the Spanish galleon San José — from the floor of the Caribbean Sea as soon as possible, the country’s minister of culture told Bloomberg last week.

British ship the Expedition (centre) fires on Spanish flagship, the San José, (left) in a painting by English painter Samuel Scott of the 1708 battle where it was sunk.

Mr Petro wants to bring the 62-gun, three-masted ship to the surface before his term is up in 2026 and has requested a public-private partnership be formed to see it through, Minister of Culture Juan David Correa reported the New York Post.

“This is one of the priorities for the Petro administration,” he said. “The president has told us to pick up the pace.”

But mystery surrounds the ownership of the massive trove of gold, silver and emeralds estimated to be worth anywhere between $6.15 billion and $30.75 billion, according to a lawsuit.

The wreck was found and photographed some 2000 feet underwater in 2015. Picture: Presidencia de la República – Colombia

The crux of the issue appears to revolve around who is believed to have found it.

The San José galleon — with 600 crew members on-board — sank some 2000 feet (about 600m) on June 8, 1708, during a battle against the British in the War of the Spanish Succession.

It remained a thing of legend for years as its exact location was unknown.

Then in 1981, the US company Glocca Morra claimed it discovered the lost treasure and turned over its coordinates to Colombia with the promise it would receive half the fortune when recovered.

Years later, in 2015, Colombia’s then-President Juan Manuel Santos said the country’s navy found the San José wreck at a different location on the sea floor.

Jack Harbeston managing director of salvage company Sea Search Armada showing the location on map of Spanish galleon San Jose on 24 May 2007.

Colombia has never released the coordinates of the ship’s final resting place, but Glocca Morra — now called Sea Search Armada — believes the country found part of the same debris field in 2015 that it first discovered 34 years earlier.

The company is suing the Colombian government for half the treasure, or $15.38 billion, according to its estimate, under the US-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement, according to Bloomberg.

Mr Correa, meanwhile, told the outlet that the government’s researchers visited the coordinates shared by Sea Search Armada and “concluded that there is no shipwreck there”.

This story appeared in the New York Post and is reproduced with permission.