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Legendary shipwreck’s treasure of “incalculable value” will be recovered by underwater robot, Colombia says
Colombia’s government on Friday announced an expedition to remove items of “incalculable value” from the wreck of the legendary San Jose galleon, which sank in 1708 while laden with gold, silver and emeralds estimated to be worth billions of dollars. The 316-year-old wreck, often called the “holy grail” of shipwrecks, has been controversial, because it is both an archaeological and economic treasure.
Culture Minister Juan David Correa told AFP that more than eight years after the discovery of the wreck off Colombia’s coast, an underwater robot would be sent to recover some of its bounty.
Between April and May, the robot would extract some items from “the surface of the galleon” to see “how they materialize when they come out (of the water) and to understand what we can do” to recover the rest of the treasures, said Correa.
The operation will cost more than $4.5 million and the robot will work at a depth of 600 meters to remove items such as ceramics, pieces of wood and shells “without modifying or damaging the wreck,” Correa told AFP aboard a large naval ship.
The location of the expedition is being kept secret to protect what is considered one of the greatest archaeological finds in history from malicious treasure hunters.
The San Jose galleon was owned by the Spanish crown when it was sunk by the British navy near Cartagena in 1708. Only a handful of its 600-strong crew survived.
Samuel Scott
“It makes it very touchy because one is not supposed to intervene in war graves,” Justin Leidwanger, an archaeologist at Stanford University who studies ancient shipwrecks, told Live Science.
The ship had been heading back from the New World to the court of King Philip V of Spain, laden with treasures such as chests of emeralds and some 200 tons of gold coins.
Before Colombia announced the discovery in 2015, it was long sought after by treasure hunters.
“As if we were in colonial times”
The discovery of the galleon sparked a tug-of-war over who gets custody of its bounty.
Spain insists that the bounty is theirs since it was aboard a Spanish ship, while Bolivia’s Qhara Qhara nation says it should get the treasures as the Spanish forced the community’s people to mine the precious metals.
LUIS ACOSTA/AFP via Getty Images
Since Thursday, Spain’s ambassador to Colombia Joaquin de Aristegui, and representatives of Bolivia’s Indigenous people have been taking part in a symposium with experts to discuss the best way to access the treasure.
The government of leftist president Gustavo Petro, in power since 2022, wants to use the country’s own resources to recover the wreck and ensure it remains in Colombia.
De Aristegui said he has instructions to offer Colombia a “bilateral agreement” on the protection of the wreck.
Correa said Bolivia’s Indigenous people have expressed their willingness to work with Petro’s government.
The idea is “to stop considering that we are dealing with a treasure that we have to fight for as if we were in colonial times, with the pirates who disputed these territories,” he added.
The expedition to start recovering the shipwreck’s trove comes as a case is underway at the UN’s Permanent Court of Arbitration between Colombia and the U.S.-based salvage company Sea Search Armada — which claims it found the wreck first over 40 years ago.
The company is demanding $10 billion dollars, half the wreck’s estimated value today.
In June 2022, Colombia said that a remotely operated vehicle reached 900 meters below the surface of the ocean, showing new images of the wreckage.
The video showed the best-yet view of the treasure that was aboard the San Jose — including gold ingots and coins, cannons made in Seville in 1655 and an intact Chinese dinner service.
At the time, Reuters reported the remotely operated vehicle also discovered two other shipwrecks in the area, including a schooner thought to be from about two centuries ago.
/ AP
CHICAGO (CBS) — Delphi double murderer Richard Allen will learn his fate learn during sentencing on Friday morning.
An Indiana jury has convicted Allen in the murders of 14-year-old Liberty “Libby” German and 13-year-old Abigail “Abby” Williams who had vanished during a hike in Delphi in 2017.
The jury of seven women and five men spent about 19 hours deliberating over the course of three days before finding Allen, 52, guilty of all counts.
Allen faces up to 130 years in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for 8 a.m. CT.
Delphi murders: Timeline of events
On Feb. 13, 2017, Abby and Libby were dropped off at a hiking trail on the Monon High Bridge in Delphi When they failed to meet Libby’s father later in the day, they were reported missing. They were found dead about a mile from where they were last seen with cuts to the throat, according to prosecutors.
Police investigated thousands of leads, and released multiple composite sketches of the suspect based on eyewitness accounts.
Audio evidence from Libby’s cell phone revealed an unknown man had told the girls to go “down the hill.” Libby also recorded a short Snapchat video of a man who police believed was the killer. Although police circulated the photo and audio just days after the killings, the case ran cold for more than five years until Allen was arrested in 2022.
Allen lived in Delphi and worked at a local CVS pharmacy until a clerk related to the investigation in September 2022 noticed he had placed himself at the scene of the killings. Just days after the bodies were discovered, Allen told police he had been on that trail around the time the girls were thought to have been killed. He told them he had been walking in the area and seen three “females” near a bridge but hadn’t spoken to them.
On Oct. 13, 2022, Allen was interviewed again after police searched through former suspects. Allen was arrested after police matched an unspent cartridge found between the girls’ bodies to a pistol recovered from his home during a police search.
Allen was arrested on Oct. 26, 2022, and was charged with two counts of murder while committing or attempting to commit a kidnapping five days later. Prosecutors later amended the charges to include two additional counts of murder. Allen pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Over the course of the trial, the prosecution highlighted Allen’s dozens of confessions while incarcerated: He confessed to the crime more than 60 times, prosecutors say, including to his wife, his mother, the psychologist who treated him, the warden, and other prison employees and inmates. They played audio recordings of some of the confessions for the jury. The defense doubted the confessions and said they were made involuntarily and that he was suffering from mental illness at the time.
Monica Wala, the former lead psychologist at Westville Correctional Facility where Allen was housed, testified he initially told her he was innocent but began confessing to the crimes in April 2023, around the time he was placed back on suicide watch.
According to WTHR, Wala testified that Allen had told her, “I killed Abby and Libby. I’m sorry,” and that he originally planned to sexually assault the victims but ran away when he saw a van nearby and that he had cut the girls’ throats and covered their bodies with sticks, she testified.
Allen’s lawyers previously suggested that the girls were killed as part of a pagan ritual sacrifice and accused police of ignoring evidence from the crime scene. In a search warrant request in March 2017, an FBI agent claimed the girls’ bodies appeared to have been “moved and staged” at the crime scene. That theory was not heard by the jury per the judge’s ruling.
Thompkins said Allen’s conviction could be reversed if an appeal finds the jury did not hear a fair amount of evidence.
The defense could file an appeal within 30 days of the sentencing.
This is a developing story.
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