A centuries-old Spanish treasure galleon, potentially worth $5 billion, remains largely untouched on the seabed more than a decade after its discovery, sparking an international legal battle over its ownership. The dispute involves Spain, Colombia, Indigenous groups and American treasure hunters, each vying for a claim to the immense fortune.
On Thanksgiving Day 2015, maritime archaeologist Roger Dooley was reviewing data in Cartagena, Colombia, when he spotted something he had been searching for years. As he examined sonar images from a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution remotely operated vehicle that had spent 17 hours scanning the Caribbean seafloor, his hands began to tremble.
Clicking through the sonar images, Dooley and his team identified a sword hilt emerging from the sand and three bronze cannons, each bearing a compact dolphin marking – a definitive identifier of the shipwreck. “I still thought I was dreaming,” Dooley said.
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They had located the San José, a Spanish ship that sank in 1708 while carrying gold, silver, and emeralds plundered from Indigenous peoples in the Americas. The cargo is now estimated to be worth $5 billion.
“This represents the most valuable shipwreck in the history of mankind,” said Julian Sancton, author of Neptune’s Fortune: The Billion-Dollar Shipwreck and the Ghosts of the Spanish Empire. The discovery has ignited a complex legal and ethical debate over the fate of the treasure and its rightful ownership.
However, the extraordinary treasure remains unrecovered. A court of arbitration in The Hague is expected to issue a ruling this year regarding the competing claims, including whether an American salvage company is entitled to half the treasure and if a British firm, Maritime Archaeology Consultants (MAC), which funded Dooley’s work, also has a stake.
Dooley’s quest for the San José began in 1984, when he researched colonial Spanish records at the General Archive of the Indies in Seville, Spain, searching for clues about ancient shipwrecks. The archive contained sixty million documents dating back to the time of Columbus.
He discovered a collection of letters, bound like small books, detailing the loss of three ships, royal ransoms, and the deaths of everyone on board. These weren’t records of the shipwreck he sought, but of the San José.
The galleon served as the flagship of a Spanish treasure fleet. On the night of June 8, 1708, British Commodore Charles Wager attacked the ship off the coast of Cartagena. A fire broke out on the San José, and Wager wrote in his journal that the vessel exploded. As the smoke cleared, the San José vanished. “A floating city, gone in an instant,” Sancton wrote.
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Kapal San Jose when attacked by the British fleet. Photo: NY Post
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The cause of the explosion remains a mystery. Casa Alegre, the 71-year-old commander of the San José, who perished with the ship, may have preferred to send his vessel and its riches to the bottom of the sea rather than face the humiliation of returning to Spain empty-handed after losing the wealth to the British.
After uncovering the clues about the San José, Dooley returned to Cuba and his work with Carisub, a treasure hunting company. In the late 1990s, he left and settled in the United States, where he spent years trying to convince investors to fund a search for the San José.
In 2013, he finally succeeded. British entrepreneur Anthony Clarke formed Maritime Archaeology Consultants to support his efforts. Two years later, in November 2015, Dooley narrowed the search to an area of the seabed covering 43 square miles off the coast of Colombia.
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution deployed the REMUS autonomous underwater vehicle, capable of diving to depths of 6,000 meters and scanning the seafloor with sonar while operating independently for up to 24 hours.
Dooley was 71 years old when he made the discovery. The significant find quickly triggered an international dispute. Spain claimed ownership of the ship, calling the San José a mass grave that should remain undisturbed.
Colombia insisted the wreck lay within or just outside its territorial waters. The country has recovered some less valuable items, such as coins and cannons. Indigenous groups argue the treasure represents wealth stolen through forced labor.
Dooley proposed that Colombia retain the treasure, display it in museums, and reimburse Clarke for the cost of discovering the wreck. Now 80 years old, he still lives in Miami and remains concerned about the fate of the San José.
Sancton insists the wreck should not fall into the hands of private collectors. He believes the treasure belongs in museums or should remain on the seafloor. “The Spanish treasure fleets carried the wealth of entire continents across the oceans, laying the foundation for the global trading system and shaping the modern world. The rightful owner of the ship is humanity,” he stated.
(fyk/rns)
