For almost 10 years, countries have been arguing because of a ship with treasures

Their cost is estimated at billions of dollars. He sank two centuries ago

Spain, Colombia, Bolivia and the American company Sea Search Armada have been arguing since 2015, which of them belongs to the San Jose ship, which had trained in the 18th century, which transported jewelry equal to about 20 billion modern dollars. Despite the fact that the lawsuit is still ongoing, the Colombians decided to raise the ship from the bottom of the Caribbean to restore. This news revived the dispute. "Cold" says what is known about him.

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In 1708, Galeon "San Jose" - the flagship of the Spanish armada - returned to Spain from South America. He was perhaps the largest treasures in the history of the Navy: gold, silver, emeralds and other jewelry, the cost of which can reach 20 billion US dollars. All these treasures were collected in the Spanish colonies and were intended for King Philip V. With the help of jewelry, he was going to finance the war for the Spanish inheritance against Britain.

When the ship passed by the Columbian Port City of Kartaen in the Caribbean, it was attacked by the British military vessels. However, the British failed to take possession of treasures: before they reached San Jose, the ship went to the bottom. There were 600 people on board, including passengers and crew members. Only 11 of them were able to escape.

For two hundred years, treasure hunters and adventurers tried to find a sunken ship, writes The Guardian. Gabriel Garcia Marquez even wrote about San Jose: the hero of his novel “Love during Cholera” Florentino Arisa, suffering from unrequited love, dreamed of taking possession of a sanking treasure to hand him Fermino Dasa to his beloved girl.

Find

In the 1980s, the American company Sea Search Armada took up the search. She described the sunken ship as a “bulky banking vault”, filled with gold from Peru mines, pearls from Panama, as well as emeralds, amethysts and diamonds from South American Andes.

“In 1708, the cost of this cargo exceeded the annual national income of Spain. <...> In addition to precious metals and stones, there were cocoa, indigo, leather, cocked, valuable wood species and many other goods, ”the company's message quoted by The Guardian.

In November 2015, the Columbia authorities announced that they had found the fragments of San Jose at a depth of about 600 meters. President of the country Juan Manuel Santos called this "one of the greatest finds of the underwater heritage in the history of mankind." He promised to build a museum in Cartagena to demonstrate treasures found on a sunken ship. However, several more states declared the ownership of San Jose, which is why the ship remained at the bottom of the Caribbean.

A protracted dispute

The American company Sea Search Armada entered the dispute. Its representatives said that it was this company that first discovered the crash of the ship back in 1981. SSA allegedly handed over to the Colombian authorities the coordinates of Galeon in exchange for 35% of the treasures. In 2011, the US court declared the ship the property of the Colombian state, but SSA did not agree with this and continued the lawsuit with Colombia.

Then the Spanish authorities joined the dispute. In 2015, the country's cultural and foreign ministerscalled the San Jose a state Spanish ship, which has the right to own Spain. A year ago, the Spanish media wrote that the dispute between Spain and Colombia on the ship’s belonging continues.

Representatives of the indigenous people of Bolivia Khara-Khara also stated their claims against jewelry. They argue that silver and gold transported to San Jose were obtained by their ancestors, so they also have the right to treasures.

The authorities of Colombia insist that the sunken ship and everything that is on it belongs to them. They stated that the government had already financed the first stage of the ship’s study, allocating $ 7.3 million to this. Colombia tried to sell part of the treasures from the ship at the auction in order to cover the costs of restoring and studying San Jose, but UNESCO opposed this.

The Minister of Culture of Colombia Juan David Correa, in a conversation with Bloomberg, said that the president of the country of Gustavo Petro ordered as soon as possible - before his powers in 2026 - to raise San Jose from the bottom.

Restoration

Despite the fact that the dispute about the belonging of the Treasures of San Jose is not completed, Colombia decided to raise the fragments of the galleon and try to restore them.

“Galeon was stubbornly perceived as a treasury. We want to turn this page over. We do not think about treasures. We are thinking about how to access historical and archaeological information, ”said the director of the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History of Alhen Kaedo on March 18, 2024.

The Kaedo team plans to start the rise of San Jose from the bottom in April and put it in the museum. However, ships like this are rarely subject to restoration, writes The Guardian. Moreover, not a single ship sank in tropical waters has yet managed to restore.

The exact location of San Jose remains a state secret - so the ship is protected from robbers. The Colombian military develops underwater robots that will take photos and videos and make a card of debris, after which the experts will try to raise debris on land.