Colombia Fights U.S. Diver for Treasure

AP
BOGOTA, Colombia (June 3) - The Spanish galleon San Jose was trying to outrun a fleet of British warships off Colombia's coast on June 8, 1708, when a mysterious explosion sent it to the bottom of the sea with gold, silver and emeralds now valued at more than $2 billion.
World's Richest Sunken Treasure?

Three centuries later, a bitter legal and political dispute over the San Jose is still raging, with the Colombian Supreme Court expected to rule this week on rival claims by the government and a group of U.S. investors to what is reputed to be the world's richest shipwreck.

Anxiously awaiting the decision is Jack Harbeston, managing director of the Cayman Islands-registered commercial salvage company Sea Search Armada, who has taken on seven Colombian administrations over two decades in a legal fight to claim half the sunken hulk's riches.

"If I had known it was going to take this long, I wouldn't have gotten involved in the first place," said Harbeston, 75, who lives in Bellevue, Wash.

In 1982, Sea Search announced to the world it had found the San Jose's resting place 700 feet below the water's surface, a few miles from the historic Caribbean port of Cartagena. Under well-established maritime law, whoever locates a shipwreck gets the rights to recover it in a kind of finder-keepers arrangement meant to offset the huge costs of speculative exploration.

Harbeston claims he and a group of 100 U.S. investors - among them the late actor Michael Landon and convicted Nixon White House adviser John Ehrlichman - have invested more than $12 million since a deal was signed with Colombia in 1979 giving Sea Search exclusive rights to search for the San Jose and 50 percent of whatever they find.

But all that changed in 1984, when then-Colombian President Belisario Betancur signed a decree reducing Sea Search's share from 50 percent to a 5 percent "finder's fee."

Current President Alvaro Uribe's office declined to discuss the impending court decision, which is expected by Wednesday. But over the years successive governments have argued that Colombia's maritime agency never had the authority to award exploration contracts to Sea Search because the wreck is part of the country's cultural patrimony.

The government may also be motivated by dollar signs. Harbeston believes that if sold skillfully to collectors and museums, the San Jose's treasure could fetch as much $10 billion - more than a third of Colombia's foreign debt.

The real value is impossible to calculate because the ship's manifests have disappeared. But the San Jose is known to have been part of Spain's only royal convoy to try to bring colonial bullion home to King Philip V during the War of Spanish Succession with England from 1701-1714.

"Without a doubt the San Jose is the Holy Grail of treasure shipwrecks," said Robert Cembrola, director of the Naval War College Museum in Newport, R.I.

The San Jose has become a national obsession among Colombians, for whom the "gringos" are the latest in a long line of foreign plunderers dating back to the Spanish conquerors. But that has not prevented three lower courts from ruling that Sea Search is entitled to half the treasure.
More Shipwreck Treasures
Several U.S. congressmen and the State Department also took up the cause, warning in letters to successive Colombian presidents that what they considered a de-facto expropriation could jeopardize unilateral trade privileges.

Luis Felipe Barrios, a former government attorney on the case, said pressure from Washington was so intense that in the late 1990s he received a fax from former Sen. Jesse Helms, then-chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, threatening to revoke his visa.

Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., one of the most active campaigners on Sea Search's behalf, did not return calls or e-mails seeking comment. Most of the dozen other congressmen who took part in the letter-writing campaign have since retired.

Adding to this modern-day pirate drama is a mystery: Some question whether the ship has even been found.

In 1994, Colombia hired treasure hunter Tommy Thompson to verify Sea Search's coordinates. Thompson, an American who has since disappeared allegedly with millions in investors' loot from a previous deep-sea find, turned up nothing.

Another oceanographer, Mike Costin, who worked on a commercial submarine brought in by Sea Search for one of the company's early, booze-filled expeditions, also has his doubts.

"We found something, but I don't think it was the San Jose," he said.

An underwater video taken of the alleged wreck in 1982 show what looks like a corral reef-covered woodpile.

"But drink a glass of wine and it can look like almost anything," said Tony Dyakowski, a treasure hunter based in Vancouver, Canada. Dyakowski claims to have uncovered sea logs that put the San Jose miles closer to the mainland.

Harbeston shrugs off his detractors, saying, "If everyone's so sure it's not down there, then why don't they let us finish what we've started?"

Wherever the hulk lies, marine archaeologists say advances in diving, sonar and metal-detection make it possible to find almost any underwater wreck today. The problem is fending off rivals for whom the glint of gold is too powerful to resist.
"It's like when you light a lantern in the forest and you discover all these insects you didn't know were there before are now descending on you," said Peter Hess, a Delaware lawyer who represents salvage companies.

Besides Sea Search, rival salvage companies and the Colombian government, Spain has also actively defended its sovereign rights over sunken ships that flew its flag. Last week, Spain filed claims in a U.S. federal court seeking up to $500 million in colonial treasure a Florida firm estimates it found recently in a shipwreck in the Atlantic Ocean.

Archeologists also have voiced concern, pointing to a 2001 UNESCO convention - backed by Spain but not signed by Colombia or the United States - that outlaws commercial exploitation of sunken cultural heritage.

"People forget the San Jose is an underwater grave of 600 men," said Carla Rahn Phillips, a University of Minnesota historian and author of the new book "The Treasure of the San Jose." "The wreck deserves to be treated with respect, and most salvors I know only pay lip service to its historical importance."

The Colombian court ruling will also affect other commercial salvage companies eager to dive for more than 1,000 galleons and merchant ships believed to have sunk along Colombia's corral reefs during more than three centuries of colonial rule. Almost none have been recovered due to the legal limbo in the San Jose case.

Daniel de Narvaez, a scuba-diving businessman hoping to salvage a wreck near the Caribbean island of San Andres, said that given the long, tortuous battle, he expects the decision could go either way.

"After such a laughable and tragic ordeal, nothing surprises me anymore," he said.

here is the link:

http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/colombia-fights-us-diver-for-treasure/20070603213709990001

Miguel_Clavo

By Miguel_Clavo on Jun 3, 2007, 21:37 in Friendly Talkzone.

goin_south says on Jun 3, 2007, 22:49:

I only skimmed your article; This is the one that just happened a week or so ago, si?
I knew someone else, and probably before it is finished, more than one other faction, would be laying claim to stakes. I had no idea where it was, in relation to Colombia, except I had heard it was in the Atlantic.

I don't know what the crew members' nationality was/is. And, it doens't matter. Whoever put down the blood, sweat, and tears, deserves the spoils.

These guys/gals could have dived for a lifetime, without ever uncovering the goods.

I'm always for sharing the wealth (when it goes beyond reason!)
It sounds like they have uncovered unbelievable amounts of precious metals.

It sounds like a good movie! Whoever can keep and protect the findings... BUENAS SUERTE!

Voy para del Sur

Colombia es

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juancegomez says on Jun 3, 2007, 22:56:

I'm no lawyer, yet... I'm slightly inclined to agree with Sea Search's view (the original terms, I suppose: 50% for Sea Search / 50% for Colombia), at least at first glance.

It's not a matter of "blood and tears" in my view, nor of "nationalism", but of who is actually legally correct.

However, I'll stand by and wait for the ruling by the Court, before elaborating on that.

Of course...if the Court says that Sea Search is wrong (and Betancur was right), then so be it. They know the law (or are supposed to), I don't. C'est la vie.

In any event, both sides are already showing lots of greediness over this (not exactly a pretty thing, even if the treasure really existed, which is still more or less in doubt). Typical. The historical importance of the ship and so forth is not really high among anyone's concerns.

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goin_south says on Jun 3, 2007, 23:27:

okay. but, if they already have this stuff back in the States as I have already read (I think), then what makes anyone think Colombia should have any claim? As I said, I don't know where the divers are from. But, that shouldn't matter either. Law? The judges?

hell no. Whoever it is who foot the bill for all the diving and exploration expenses are the ones who should have claim to the goods, of course, with a large, LARGE CHUNK going to the divers.

Voy para del Sur

Colombia es

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panthdave says on Jun 4, 2007, 02:51:

Correct Goin_South Who Invested in the Costs? There is the maritime law and also who ever invested many years of there money to find this treasure are the ones to keep. What it looks like there are a 100 Investors..
What is this?
But all that changed in 1984, when then-Colombian President Belisario Betancur signed a decree reducing Sea Search's share from 50 percent to a 5 percent "finder's fee."

Going to be interesting on what the Colombian Judge Rules..on this..I would assume automatically they will pay for all costs plus interest and the 5 percent finders fee or the explorers will have all rights but they should give a percentage to the Colombian Government plus any artifacts from the boat for museums..

Going to be interesting..

panthdave Miami

panthdave Miami

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lpdiver says on Jun 4, 2007, 02:56:

Since it sank in 1708 when Venezuela was part of Colombia I am surprized Chavez isn't crying for "his" share.

t

"cook some rice!"

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juancegomez says on Jun 4, 2007, 09:21:

going_south "okay. but, if they already have this stuff back in the States as I have already read (I think),"

I haven't read anything like that and the article apparently argues the opposite.

Could you clarify or otherwise show us more about that?

panthdave:
"There is the maritime law and also who ever invested many years of there money to find this treasure are the ones to keep. "

There was a previous 1979 contract specifying other terms, as the article makes clear, that applies to this particular case. Even if the Court ruled in favor of Sea Search, one would imagine that the original contract would still stand.

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Miguel_Clavo says on Jun 4, 2007, 09:55:

Going South ..dont confuse the recent recovery of DaBooty found recently off the shores of Spain which was recovered and brought to the US.....this event with Colombia was discovered back in 1982 a few miles off the coast or Cartagena. I dont believe the treasure has been brought up yet,,,,they are still fighting over the percentages....Seems to me that the artifacts were "stolen" from Colombia in the first place by the Spaniards, and as such seem to be "fruits of the posionous tree" and belong to Colombia...SS should get a finders fee.....

Just my opinion...

Miguel_Clavo =)..aka, DragonSlayer..2-0..Colombia es pasión!

"I would rather die living life, than to live a dying life."........ Oh, and my PM is always ON. Great Bumper Sticker: "Home of the Free, Because of the Brave"

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goin_south says on Jun 4, 2007, 12:42:

muchas gracias, M_C. I think you have revived my memory I think you have it straight, now. 2 different events.

Voy para del Sur

Colombia es

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podborski says on Jun 4, 2007, 13:17:

the biggest lie of all is that anyone is really concerned about the 600 men who died there 300 years ago, yeah right.

When they say it isn't about the money, you know for SURE it's about the money.

50/50 seems more than generous considering the long history of maratime law that would be 100% for the finder.

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goin_south says on Jun 4, 2007, 21:58:

Really, I-Pod! I didn't think they made boats big enough, 300 years ago, to hold 600 people. (600 slaves? maybe. 600 rum-drinkin-bastards, free-to-party!? I don't think.)

Voy para del Sur

Colombia es

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Robert Jorge says on Jun 5, 2007, 02:36:

Exactly ... 600 people? Hmmm. And I don't think many people mourn for the dearly departed 304 years ago.

--"I believe in making the world safe for our children. But not for our children's children, because I don't think that children should be having sex." - Jack Handy

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