Gold Odyssey
09-09-2010 golden videosVideo and news about the judgment for the load of 594.000 golden coins and silver that sank in 1804 with the frigate “Our Lady of the Mercedes”, and later found by the American company Odyssey Marine Exploration in May, 2007.
Linkage to the newest news on the case Odyssey, further down
News of 23-12-2009
The odyssey of the gold of Odyssey has 10 days to return to Spain the opposing treasure
The federal court of Tampa, across the judge Steven Merryday, has established a term of 10 days so that Odyssey returns to Spain 594.000 coins of gold and silver that the North American company found in May, 2007 and that valued for 500 million dollars (approximately 350 millions of euros). Nevertheless, the North American company has a term to present allegations.
You obtain (23-12-2009)
Gold Odyssey
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Also, in the conclusions of the judgment of the Court of Tampa, it is indicated that Odyssey, Peru and the progeny who claim his part of the opposing treasure are "groundless" or that in any case “they do not need a resolution different from the Spanish requests” and therefore the objections are "annulled".
On May 18, 2007, Odyssey announced that it had found and transported a coins shipment to the United States. This North American company baptized to the operation and to the flotsam met the name of “Black Swan”.
From this moment, the Spanish Government opened an investigation to quarrel in what place the company found the booty, to what flotsam it belonged, with what permissions it was provided to do it and if it found it in Spanish waters.
THE FINISHED HISTORY OF THE MERCEDES
Some months later, a joint team of the Department of Culture, the Navy, the National Archaeological museum, the Real Academy of the History and other institutions it reconstructed the finished history of the ship “La Mercedes“, demonstrating that this, and not other, was the flotsam pillaged by Odyssey.
The papers were demonstrating that “La Mercedes“ was in active military service with the mission to protect the Spanish State and his citizens along all his history, and also at the moment when it exploited and sank in combat. Also, the presented material proves that Odyssey realized entirely it, and that it is this precisely what explains the secret with which it acted and his affirmations of not knowing the identity of the flotsam.
To justify his claims, a joint team of the Department of Culture, the Navy, the National Archaeological museum, the Real Academy of the History and other institutions it reconstructed the finished history of “La Mercedes“, demonstrating that this, and not other, is the flotsam pillaged by Odyssey.
The papers were demonstrating, as well as “La Mercedes“ was in active military service with the mission to protect the Spanish State and his citizens along all his history, and also at the moment when it exploited and sank in combat. Also, the presented material proves that Odyssey realized entirely it, and that it is this precisely what explains the secret with which it acted and his affirmations of not knowing the identity of the flotsam.
DEFINITIVE TESTS
The papers were including a wide photographic material and other tests that were demonstrating that the flotsam can be only “La Mercedes“. Cannons, anchors, weapon, personal belongings and a wide variety of other materials, including the taken coins of the ship, allowed to identify definitely the flotsam.
In his writing, Spain was invoking legal beginning, between them the right of a nation to protect his places and his historical patrimony (included sunken ships) of any type of perturbation and pillaging for cazatesoros.
Also they were alleging that “La Mercedes“ is protected by the same beginning of sovereign immunity that are applied to the ships of the State of all the nations, which prohíben not authorized perturbation or commercial development of the same ones.
Progeny of admiral Diego de Alvear, satisfied with the new judgment
The progeny of admiral Diego de Alvear has proved to be satisfied with a new judgment on the case “Odyssey“ in which a judge of the federal district of Tampa (Florida) orders the company Odyssey to return to Spain, in the course of 10 days, the treasure valued for 500 million dollars.
José Maria Moncasi de Alvear has made sure that this judgment has been celebrated “as if they the real Fat person of Christmas had fallen down” for “a big number” of progeny of admiral Diego de Alvear.
Moncasi of Alvear represents “a big number” of 1.500 progeny of admiral Diego de Alvear and Ponce of León (1749-1830), military man and Spanish politician who lost his wife, seven of his eight children and all his fortune in the attack of the English fleet to the ship “Our Lady of the Mercedes” on October 4 in 1804.
The judge Steven D. Merryday who adopted the decision of that Odyssey returns the treasure of the ship within a period of 10 days pushes back, according to the judicial document, the last claims presented by the American company on the property of the coins and other objects valued for 500 million dollars extracted from the sunken frigate “Our Lady of the Mercedes”.
The decision of the magistrate is more than the court of Tampa has adopted in favor of the Spanish theses defended by the American lawyer James Goold.
The judgment stipulates that Odyssey can keep on taking charge of the treasure until the delivery way is established and in expectation of a possible resource that the American company could present.
Odyssey makes sure that the judgment will appeal
The president of Odyssey Greg Stemm and the vice-president and general adviser of the Odyssey, Melinda MacConnel, admitted this Wednesday into a bulletin that they will present “appeals“ to the resolution of the litigation that faces him with the Spanish Government and that forces the company to return to Spain the opposing coins. The company will present his appeals to the Court of Federal District of the Average District of Florida and to the Court number 11 of appeal “in the due time”.
Also, the Odyssey president argued that “any more than 70 % of the shipment of coins of La Mercedes never belonged to Spain”, and it indicated that “individual owners and merchants paid a transport tariff to move his private properties”.
Stemm pointed out that the resolution of the judge Steven Merryday will serve to take this case “in a more rapid way” to the court of appeals and indicated that they "trust" that the legal questions will be "clearly" in his favor.
WITHOUT SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY, ACCORDING TO ODYSSEY
Also, they do not believe “that the magistrate has realized a correct analysis of the debate on the commercial activity” and hope to present the allegations although the coins had been a part of the shipment of La Mercedes, since the ship, in his opinion, not “was distinguished by sovereign immunity which they enjoy the warships in strict military service”.
In the same line, for Melinda MacConnel, “the record of foreign sovereign immunities only indicates the sovereignty of the governments and of his properties and this fact has been neglected by the court”.
Finally, the Odyssey president remembered that “some of the progeny have joined the case so that his claims are heard”.
News on the gold Odyssey
08-09-2010 ABC
Spain - 3 ships look for historical flotsams in the Bay of Cadiz
There have begun the operations of the first 3 ships of the Navy that will collaborate in the defense of the submerged patrimony as he contemplates the agreement signed between Culture and Defense in June, 2009. It is a question of the cazaminas Turia, It seals, and the longboat of the Hydrographic Institute of the Marina, Escandallo, whose operations in this first phase will last one month.
His mission will be to raise an archaeological letter for which they will identify the aberrations that there detects the sónar of side sweep with which they are equipped. Following these studies on the area and in collaboration with the technical staff of the Meeting of Andalusia and the Department of Culture, what today it begins is the first stone of a new politics coordinated to prevent from happening again a pillaging as that Odyssey Marine Exploration (OME) committed in May, 2007.
Also in AndalucíaInformación
08-09-2010 EP
Spain - The PP asks the Government to expire with his commitments to protect the subaquatic archaeological patrimony
The national deputy of the PP José Ignacio Landaluce has showed his satisfaction for the starting of measurements to increase, to promote and to catalog the subaquatic patrimony in the area of the Bay of Cadiz and Strait of Gibraltar, but he has claimed that fulfill all the commitments and measurements announced.
“It is a question of good news”, has made sure the deputy after there had been confirmed the beginning of the works gathered in an agreement signed between the Defenses Department and Culture and the Meeting of Andalusia.
Nevertheless, Landaluce has underlined that the minister of Culture, Angels González-Sinde, in his first appearance before the Commission of Culture of the Congress of the Deputies in May of last year, announced his electoral commitment to modify the Law of Historical Patrimony to articulate a better coordination with the diverse regional patrimony norms.
20-08-2010 the Country
Odyssey does not give truce in the courts for La Mercedes
19-08-2010 finance
Progeny of Admiral Alvear believes that since Odyssey sees his battle lost for the treasure it discredits Spain
José Maria Moncasi de Alvear, descendant of Admiral Diego de Alvear, the second commander of the Spanish warship Our Lady of the Mercedes, has gone out to the step of the appeals of Odyssey before the Eleventh Court of Appeals of the United States and thinks that the company cazatesoros “sees his battle lost before the courts and hence I presented his resource discrediting the judges and the Spanish State”.
In a bulletin, Moncasi de Alvear (that represents more than 1.500 progeny of the said Admiral) remembers that Spain, in his writing to the North American justice, “was invoking his defense in legal beginning, between them the right of a nation to protect his places and historical patrimony (included sunken ships) of any type of perturbation and pillaging for cazatesoros”. Moncasi of Alvear lines up also to the theses of Spain that it defends that the sunken ship was traveling under Spanish flag and that this prevails over any other argument.
As for the property of the load, the descendant of admiral Alvear alleges that the Spanish State allowed to the victims of the attacks of the English marina to present claims between 1824 and 1870. “Therefore, the Odyssey argument apart from falling down for its own weight demonstrates the ignorance of the history of Spain on the part of the company cazatesoros”, he insists.
Moncasi of Alvear thinks that the fund and the form of the document presented by OME like resource before the court of appeals of his country “says much of his insecurity and doubts before what it is going to be his future” and points out that Odyssey “has realized that neither the Government of Obama nor the Supreme Court support them in this suit”.
19-08-2010 ABC
Odyssey discredits the Spanish justice
The progeny of admiral Diego de Alvear believes that the company Odyssey already sees his battle lost before the North American justice on the property of the treasure found in a Spanish ship in 2007 in the ocean floor, and that's why, it has presented a new resource discrediting judges and the Spanish State.
16-06-2010 EcoDiario
The gold under the sea
The value of the shipments in the sunken ships, according to a military, elaborated document one year ago in the frame of the National Plan for the Protection of the Spanish Subaquatic Archaeological Patrimony, is similar to the current public deficit recognized by the State. The Navy valued for more than 100.000 million euros the value of the gold and the silver under the Spanish waters. While these treasures continue under the sea, the price of the gold reaches unpublished levels over 1.254 dollars the ounce.
The report of the Navy warned that the decision to preserve from the pillaging the treasures sunk in our waters and the estimation of which it would have plunged at least 2.000 tons of this precious metal - evaluation considered “Conservative“ by some historians - might put to relaunch the cazatesoros activities, considering the high price reached by the gold.
27-05-2010 Faro of Vigo
He interviews Carmen García - Director of the Center of Underwater archaeology of Andalusia
“The collaboration of the people of the sea is key to catch the pillaging of the subaquatic patrimony”
It had him to fight with the crisis caused by the company cazatesoros Odyssey Explorer from the Center of Underwater archaeology of Andalusia.
The Andalusian Center of Underwater archaeology takes thirteen years studying the vast cultural legacy that the waters of this region hide. Carmen García Rivera believes that the institution that it directs has passed very important to look over the protection of this patrimony, although he admits that “no area of Spain is free of pillagings” like the led one by the company Odyssey. His paper offered one of few positive visions to that they listened in the round table “Underwater archaeology, situation in Spain” celebrated in the Museum of the Sea of Vigo.
* How could happen the pillaging of Our Lady of the Mercedes on the part of the company Odyssey?
- I cannot speak about this case in particular because compete to the Department of Culture and now it is in the middle of a judgment. Also, Our Lady of the Mercedes was opposite to the coasts of Portugal, where Andalusia has no competition. Yes I can speak of seven years previous to the pillaging of La Mercedes, who is when Odyssey is in Andalusia trying to recover the English ship HM Sussex, which sank in 1694 on having gone out of Gibraltar with an important economic load. Odyssey says that it has located it, and from here on it presents a series of requests of work. It is observed that although initially the investigation of the flotsam wants to do compatibly with the recovery of the economic load, along the whole project there is receiving more importance the recovery of the economic load and it is losing leading role what is the investigation of the flotsam. Then it is answered him that in his case a few reasons sublie more mercantilists that researchers and therefore the authorization is refused to them.
* Has it turned the company cazatesoros to request authorization to be employed at this flotsam?
- No. They presented two projects and when the second one was refused to him, in parallel the pillaging of La Mercedes took place.
* Should the happened serve as alert in Andalusia to communities like Gallicia, which He Laughs at Vigo it has been tested also by similar companies?
- Certainly. I consider key to avoid the pillaging of our subaquatic patrimony the control of the securities force. But as important as this is the civil collaboration. That the one who is catching and observes that it should warn something rare. What one speaks in the ship, in the fishing ports, in the markets … The collaboration of the citizenship linked to the sea, like the sailors or sports divers, is essential to catch this problem. And nevertheless, we are not free of the pillaging. It is difficult to control it, but it is necessary to put means.
26-05-2010 the Reason
Odyssey returns after the treasures of the Mediterranean
The company is employed at 2 projects with name in key, “Firebrand“ and “Shantaram“, opposite to the coast of Beirut.
25-05-2010 ABC
González-Sinde is grateful to the USA for the help given in the case Odyssey
A judicial pulse that in accordance with the estimations offered by the minister might remain solved in favor of Spain in the course of this year 2010.
Angels González-Sinde, holder of the portfolio of Culture, he has made use of his first visit to the capital of the United States to be grateful to the federal authorities for the help given inside the contentious boarding by the marine treasure of the one that the American company Odyssey has adapted. A judicial pulse that in accordance with the estimations offered by the minister might remain solved in favor of Spain in the course of this year.
The minister has emphasized especially the assistance given by the Department of the State and the National government of Oceans and Ambience (NOAA). Quite inside the institutional commitment assumed in January, 2001 by the president Clinton in one of his last acts in the White House. Declaration for which the government of the United States attributes to the remains of official ships the same considerations of respect as to military graves, establishing a cooperation frame to exercise these protections with third countries.
16-05-2010 the Digital Faro
The company Odyssey is going to appeal and appeal and the case can be late years
He interviews. The Doctor of Philosophy and History and chronicler of Goat, Antonio Moreno, who brought to the Government information about the ship litigation motive, mentions that the expense of Spain in the process amounts to approximately 5 million euros as information of press.
* Two resolutions exist on the case that are favorable to Spain.
- There is a resolution of date June 3, 2009, of the judge Mark Pizzo, in which it is said to the company that he has to return what he has gathered because it is clear that it is a question of a Spanish ship and that the content is Spanish. There is another resolution of December 22 of last year where the judge Merryday gives him the account to Spain. The case is already on the point of being decided again at a top level and the surest thing is that Odyssey is going to appeal and appeal.
* Has he left yet possibilities of keeping on disputing?
- They have a pair of levels more that to rise. And precisely last 11th a declaration of this company was announced saying that they are going to come until the end.
* The process one can still lengthen enough more.
- It can still be late years and there are already three. This is the problem, that they did not want that it was judged in Spain and went away to the United States where they have influence great. And there they believed that they were going to have support, but in the last days of August the Government of the United States and the Supreme Court was let know by them Odyssey that were not going to support him in this suit because they have understood that according to the International law and an agreement of the year 1902 the United States were accepting that in any sunken ship the entitlement was from the country that was naming him.
14-05-2010 ABC
Expert says that new documents try that the ship belongs to Spain
The Doctor of Philosophy and Letters e History, Antonio Moreno Hurtado has pointed out that the new opposing documents allow to demonstrate that the rights on the flotsam of the frigate of war “Our Lady of the Mercedes” that located the company Odyssey belong to Spain.
Dark-haired person Hurtado, who is an official chronicler of Goat (Cordova), has affirmed in an interview that it discovered a few documents that there states the mailing of a remittance of silver weight from the Indies in the direction of the Spanish Crown in coins again stamp.
The expert, owing to a visit to Ceuta to explain the keys of the suit, has argued that this mailing discards that it will be a question of money in circulation sent by merchants, strengthening the thesis of the Spanish property of the flotsam of the frigate, which sank in 1804.
Dark-haired person Hurtado has pointed out that it obtained the documents of the National File and has indicated that “I have contributed them on having thought that the lawyers of Spain were not going for a very aggressive way since they were speaking any more of sovereignty that of contributing concrete documents”.
Between the documents they are formless of the service of English spying on the exit of the frigate loaded with the coins as well as documents of the games of the coins directed to Spanish institutions.
The expert has added that “all the coins recovered by Odyssey had just been minted in Lima and with the period that existed since they were minted until they were in circulation they were happening from six until seven months and the documents that I have contributed evidence that the coins are minted at the end of 1803 and were coming to Spain in March, 1804 ″.
The specialist also has investigated that “it is possible to demonstrate that the coins of the ship had minted a maximum from three until four months, therefore it was not a mission of commercial type, there were coins that belonged to the Spanish Crown”.
Of the subsidence of the frigate there is he tells that “a lot of money was coming to subsidize Napoleón in his war with England, therefore it is known that ships were traveling loaded to support the expenses of the war, for what it is possible to understand that the Englishmen were sinking the ship”.
In this sense he has said that these documents “yes complete the strategy to defend the rights of Spain because the company Odyssey has changed several times his strategy since first they did not want to admit that the frigate was Mercedes and then they wanted to demonstrate that it was not a military but commercial mission”.
13-05-2010 AndaluciaInformacion
Spain - The People's Party (PP) asks not to relax before the contentious one with Odyssey
The national deputy of the People's Party, José Ignacio Landaluce, has urged the Spanish Government to remain especially attentive to all the legal movements that go taking place concerning the matter Odyssey, since the last news points that “the American company continues in his determination to remain with the pillaged treasure and not to return it to his legitimate owner, the Spanish State”.
Odyssey is using “any legal cunning argument”, added the PP, “to prolong the judicial process” open sea in the North American courts.
Until now, the law there has given the account to Spain in his claim of return of 500.000 golden coins and silver proceeding from the flotsam Our Lady of the Mercedes, a treasure valued for approximately 500 million dollars.
“The legal services of the Spanish Government must keep on supporting his firm position and not resign to what it belongs to our country, and, therefore, to all the Spanish”, emphasized deputy Landaluce, who added that “the reason has already endorsed the arguments contributed by the Government of Spain, and last December a judicial report had already taken place urging the company to return the treasure to the Spanish authorities, a resolution that has not been fulfilled”.
“The legal period protect Odyssey to keep on trying to do with the totality of 500.000 golden coins and silver”.
Spain counts in his favor with the previous resolutions, “that have always born in mind the arguments used by our country”.
11-05-2010 EFE/Google
Odyssey will resort to the Supreme one of the USA if they order him to return the treasure to Spain
The company Odyssey will resort to the Supreme Court of the USA if the Court of Appeals of Atlanta (Georgia) fails in favor of that I delivered to the Spanish State a treasure valued for 500 million dollars.
“Probably we will appeal to the Supreme Court of the USA if the Eleventh Court of Appeals, with head office in Atlanta, does not give an opinion in our favor”, he declared today Efe Melinda MacConnel, vice-president of Odyssey.
The company of submarine exploration presented this Monday before this Court of Appeals a report opposite to the judicial order of the magistrate of Tampa (Florida) Steven Merryday so that it delivers to Spain a treasure consisted of 500.000 silver coins and gold.
In the document, of 85 pages, the American company, with head office in Tampa, detailed the arguments for which, to his judgment, the “legal analysis” of the court of Florida suffers from absence of rigor and commits “clear and serious errors”.
He added that “for reasons that we cannot explain to ourselves, the court of the district accepted the partial and erroneous 'facts' presented by the Spanish State, ignoring” those exhibited by Odyssey, Peru and all the rest claimants and progeny of the merchants to whom the 17 tons treasure belonged.
Odyssey insists that “La Mercedes“ was compromised in a mission of “commercial nature” at the moment of his subsidence in 1804 opposite to the coasts of the Algarve (Portugal) by English ships, what annuls, to his judgment, the beginning of sovereign immunity on the load that it was transporting.
Spain has now of at least 30 days to answer to the Odyssey report, although it can request the Court of Appeals of Atlanta an enlargement of the term.
09-05-2010 the Reason
Treasures and puzzlers that they rest at the bottom of the big Spanish lake
The Pacific Ocean known in due time like «the big Spanish lake», receives in his some waters treasures and puzzlers that very few have achieved to reveal. From an assumption a sumptuous treasure hidden in the coffin of the sailor Domingo de Bonechea in Tahiti up to the gold immersed in the islands Juan Fernández, recently devastated by the tsunami in Chile.
24-04-2010 the Reason
Spain - The submerged patrimony, in the dry dock
The competitions conflicts with the different autonomies prevent from starting the agreement to protect the sunken treasures of Spain, signed 9 months ago. While, the Navy, to which a key role was granted, keeps on waiting.
To today the priority is that the autonomies are started to establish a frame of unitary performance, to prepare the flotsams map and to be employed at him. Once raised, the Navy would enter game, with whom it is necessary to be provided not only like brute force, but like supplier of information, due to which enormous quantity that it stores in his files.
The calculation of the experts codes between 1.000 and 3.000 the number of ships sunk on the coasts of Spain, without counting the Spanish vessels that they rest in half a world, which might raise to 8.000 the whole of Spanish ships for looking.
15-04-2010 Inter Economía
Gibraltar refuses to that the Spanish justice should study Odyssey objects
It alleges that they might have gone out of his supposed "territorial waters". Of being like that, the cazatesoros would have stored pieces that were not coming from 'Black Swan'.
13-04-2010 ABC
Spain - The Navy lifts the voice against the negligence of the case Odyssey
Almost three years have happened from the pillaging that Odyssey perpetrated in May, 2007 and almost one year since the ministers of Defense and Culture signed an agreement so that the ships of the Navy were taking part in the protection of the galleons sunk in Spanish waters. But there keeps on being good calmness in matters of subaquatic patrimony.
10-03-2010 ABC
Odyssey still has the people looking for shipwrecks in the Spanish files
The Spanish Justice passes pass in the case Odyssey and it has made to jump all the alarms. A judge of The Line of La Concepción has stated the absolute vulnerability of the Spanish Files and the impunity with which the historical patrimony is watched, investigated and put in danger by investigators hired by the companies of cazatesoros without conscience … for 30 years and in the present with a stable structure. Will the Government be able to put remedy?
Sources near to the process informed ABC that yesterday several witnesses declared in the penal case against Odyssey Marine Exploration (OME) in the Court number 3 of The Line that investigates the company for supposed contraband and damages to the historical patrimony. Something very serious happens. Before the judge there was appearing Victoria Stapells, the researcher who has confessed to coordinate several spies hired by OME to harvest information in the files of our big files and to locate important shipwrecks. The declarations were requested by the particular accusation of the of Malaga archaeologists of Nerea, which have joined the investigations of the Civil Guard for saying judged on the activities of Odyssey throughout years of activity on both sides of the Strait.
10-03-2010 ABC
I color with red ocher: "It is necessary to be required to put in writing the end of every investigation”
The academician of the History Martín Almagro Gorbea was listening astonished to yesterday the ABC explanations on the declaration of the investigators of Odyssey. “I do not understand that they allow them to enter and that the years happen and we are not capable of preventing from using our files to damage the Law of Patrimony. If in any Library a citizen asks for a book and they give it to themselves determined to the use that is going to make of him …”
01-03-2010 the Reason
The invoice of the Case Odyssey
The justice will fail shortly, but the Spanish Government has already budgeted for 1,6 million Euros from 2007 to pay to the juridical consultancy headed by James Goold, and whose cost might overcome 5 million Euros.
22-01-2010 Hoyesarte
Odyssey does not want to return what it pillaged
Odyssey has appealed before of the Eleventh Court of Appeals of the United States the decision of the judge of Tampa (Florida) Steven D. Merryday. The company thinks that the frigate of our navy, in spite of being sunk by the English fleet, was not going in war mission, and that most of the fortune that sank belonged to the merchants who were traveling in the ship. That would serve, according to the company spoliator, to annul the beginning of Sovereign Immunity on the ship that has always claimed Spain. Odyssey has pointed out that probably the judges, with head office in Atlanta (Georgia), will not express his report on the property of the treasure up to good brought in the year.
21-01-2010 Bajoelagua
Odyssey tries to delay the return of the treasure to Spain
In order to appeal the judicial decision, the American company alleges that 500.000 transported coins belonged to the merchants who were traveling in the Mercedes and not to the Spanish crown, by what the beginning of sovereign immunity would be annulled.
21-01-2010 ABC
Odyssey appealed to the judicial instance to avoid delivery to treasure Spain
“We have presented (last week) our appeal and the next step is that the court of appeals fixes an informative meeting, although we do not know yet when it will happen”, indicated Liz Shows, coordinating committee of communication of the company of submarine exploration. He added that the judges' panel of the Eleventh Court of Appeals, with head office in Atlanta (Georgia), will not express his report on the property of the treasure probably up to “brought in good this year, as very quickly”.
21-01-2010 the Country
Odyssey does not want to return the treasure sunk to Spain
The company buscatesoros alleges to appeal the judicial decision that 500.000 transported coins belonged to the merchants who were traveling in the Mercedes and not to the Spanish crown, by what the beginning of sovereign immunity would be annulled.
18-01-2010 the Digital Mail
The treasure of the Odyssey will not return here
The person in charge of the project Poseidón for the protection of the Submerged patrimony believes that “the press has thrown very quickly the bells to the flight” after the announcement of the Government that the courts of Tampa were giving the account to Spain.
“The company gains time with the resources, while it auctions the coins, as it has already happened in other cases”, warns.
17-01-2010 ideal
War to the submarine pillaging
Spain wants to avoid another scandal ‘Odyssey‘ with the shielding of the coast, the Navy and the use of new technologies.
It was an open secret.« Only in the Gulf of Cadiz there is more gold that in the Spanish Bank», said already two decades ago the professor Manuel Martín Bueno. It was known by adventurers as Robert Max, the North American archaeologist who quantified the booty sunk in the mouth of the Guadalquivir in 116.000 million euros. Or the investigator Gonzalo Millán of the Well, who thinks that the number overcomes 160.000 millions. It was realized well by specialists of the prestige of Javier Nieto, pioneer of the subaquatic prospects in Spain, which it denounced in the 70 that French divers were coming to spend vacations to our country and were making use of the legal gap to plunder the ocean floors. And 28 companies that in the United States they devote themselves, officially, to «to locate and rescue flotsams». It was known by intuition by the documentary makers of the File of the Indies, the fans of the superficial immersions that from the 60 accumulate particular collections worthy of any museum, the assessors, the buyers and the antiquarians.
12-01-2010 the Opinion about Murcia
A treasure in Facebook
In less than one week, more than one thousand of persons has joined in Facebook the group “I want that the treasure of the Odyssey goes to the museum Arqua of Cartagena”.
11-01-2010 the Commerce
Why does Peru claim the golden coins of the ship found by Odyssey?
According to the manifesto of load contemplated in the General File of the Indies, in the Mercedes there was a million in weight of silver: Odyssey says to have rescued little more than the half (58 %).
“There is no way, nevertheless, of knowing if it was more”, supports Francisco Yábar, captain, expert in numismatics and expert who was sent to the United States to corroborate the origin of the coins claimed by Spain:
“The majority of coins comes from the mint of Lima”, it concluded after analyzing a sample.
The latter aspect constitutes the keystone of the Peruvian demand.
“These coins were extracted from here, there were the fruit of the work of several Peruvians. For what we have asked the judge is to define the entitlement of the load, we are not speaking about the ship, but about the load, which constitutes a part of the Peruvian cultural heritage”, says ambassadress Liliana Cino.
The national argument - that will be repeated in the appeal against the mistake that grants him to Spain rights on the coins - it supports, also, that Peru is the State successor and that, therefore, there correspond to him all the goods that were extracted and that his nationals were employed at his territory. “We were the state submitted”, insists the ambassadress.
The international law endorses the national demand.
“The goods of public entitlement are transmitted to the State successor”, he adds the Convention of Vienna.
The claim, then, does not constitute an economic, but cultural demand.
Spain refutes this definition and argues that Peru did not exist like nation.
11-01-2010 ABC
Spain - The Justice has to Culture to restore the director of the Museum of Cartagena
The thunderstorms that make the ships sink do not have the last word. In submarine archaeology it is natural that the archaeologists to the surface with histories they count again. Something like that can be said about the National museum of Marine Archaeology of Cartagena (Arqua). Forced by a judgment of the 6th Room of the Top Court of Justice (TSJ) of Madrid, the Department of Culture is forced to restore like the director Iván Negueruela, who was dismissed of the direction of the Arqua in January, 2006, being minister Carmen Calvo, as ABC of judicial sources has known. The prestigious archaeologist appealed the cessation for considering it to be illegal and four years later the Justice gives him the account, therefore the Department that today directs Angels González-Sinde has already arranged his reincorporation to the charge.
There happens the circumstance of which the exit of Negueruela of the direction of the Museum of Cartagena coincided with the intensification of the activities of Odyssey Marine Exploration with waters of the Strait.
08-01-2010 the Levant
Proposal - The treasure of Our Lady of the Mercedes
By means of these lines one does not try to be daring. It is not a question of interpreting the information you nor prove that they have led several courts to giving the account to the Spanish Government.
What if I am going to raise doubts is the current right to the liberated treasure, at least the moral right that I believe that they must possess the Latin-American villages conquered and later colonized by Spain, in this case, and for other European countries in others.
In the case that occupies us let's must defend the proposal of constitution of a Foundation informed and managed by the legal representatives of the affected Latin-American and European governments, in relation to this treasure and others that could be in the future.
08-01-2010 the Reason
Odyssey, under minimums
Winds do not blow in favor of the company, which crosses a delicate economic situation translated in the loss of value of his shares. The historical minimum registered it on November 3, 2009, with 1,38 dollars for title.
06-01-2010 the Truth
Cartagena thinks about how to exhibit the Odyssey pillaging
The Arqua is confident of having the treasure of the frigate ‘Our Lady of the Mercedes’, while in the USA it continues the suit of Spain and the cazatesoros. They ask the Government to exhibit it in the National museum of Underwater archaeology.
03-01-2010 the Reason (Bolivia)
Bolivia - Odyssey - Blood of mitayos
The Chancellery and the Department of Cultures have treated with enormous agility a matter of big importance for the Potosí economy: it is a question of the submarine booty recovered by the company Odyssey.
n what compete to Bolivia, it is not true that the Department of Cultures has sent any expert in numismatics, since the Mint of Potosí has not received any instruction. Also, the Chancellery pointed out that mister David Choquehuanca would raise the topic of the participation of the country in a part of the booty to his Spanish companion, in a meeting that took place not long ago, precisely in Portugal.
The Chancellor has not reported to the public opinion about the above mentioned meeting and Bolivia allows to spend a golden opportunity, so already long ago that it should have raised before the Spanish embassy, in La Paz, and with our embassy in Madrid, the right that has the country to recover part of this treasure - if it is demonstrated that they were minted in the Mint - that cost the life of thousands of mitayos.
The country also must sit the denunciation before the UNESCO, so that in accordance with the article 14 of the protection convention of the cultural heritage, of this entity of United Nations, the matter surrenders to arbitration. The above mentioned convention indicates clearly the preferable right of the nation of origin in these historical and archaeological finds.
30-12-2009 the Country
Spain - Odyssey - The treasure of The Indies
Although the court of Florida only has given to him a few days to return the booty, there will be resource and the conflict, which takes 2 years before the courts, will be able to extend more even enough so much come to the Supreme Court; very appropriate time so that the Spanish State thinks what he wants to do with the treasure, in the apparent probability of which the 2 previous judgments are ratified.
To whom does so valued load belong today?
Do have any right to property the American peoples supervened by the colonization?
To distribute the treasure seems impracticable, because: with whom might it be done?
It would be necessary to constitute it in a fund species, along with other pieces of the American booty, which although it had his head office - storm or not - in Spain, one was declaring general patrimony of all the peoples of Latin America.
26-12-2009 ideal
Peru and Bolivia want his part of the booty in the Odyssey treasure
The governments of both countries claim his rights on the opposing coins of gold and silver for the North American company.
And each one claims it in a well different way.
Bolivia suggests his rights, while Peru threatens in spite of going to the courts.
Different motives
Peru: The Executive of Alan García bases his allegations that the coins were extracted, processed and minted in Peru. Last July, Lima already presented a writing during the judgment that was celebrated in Florida to claim the rights of property of the flotsam.
Bolivia: Bolivia has moved both to Odyssey and to the Spanish Government his desire of which an expert in numismatics identifies the origin of the find and which this find could be shared by institutions like the Mint of Potosí, where they believe that the coins were minted.
26-12-2009 the Week
Spain - Odyssey - The pirates' story without end
The frigate sank in Spanish waters 1804, like result of his warlike clash with the United Kingdom. Neither is understood then the position of Peru, which also keeps on claiming the treasure. At that time it did not exist like country, and the progeny of the human remains that sank already received his corresponding indemnification in 1870.
24-12-2009 ABC
Spain - Odyssey - A starting point
The meritorious judgment achieved by Spain demonstrates that there must be replaced the criteria of strict sovereignty, so many times questioned by seemingly allied countries and even brothers, for those that he has signed with cultural and international character (Agreement UNESCO), the solutions based on concrete judicial cases by which they would be obtained by means of agreements with the affected States, the recovery of materials pillaged by the best possible prevention, which is the proper investigation and archaeology.
22-06-2009 Atenea
Spain - The gold sunk in Spanish waters overcomes 100.000 millions
Official estimations code in more than 100.000 million euros the value of the gold and silver of the ships sunk with shipments proceeding from the American colonies throughout 400 years. The galleons of the Career of the Indies sunk in Spanish waters, according to conservative estimations, would lodge more than 2.000 tons of gold. A quantity similar to the current deficit of the Spanish economy recognized by the Government.
04-06-2009 EP
Odyssey will have to return to Spain the treasure of 500.000 golden coins and silver, 17 tons of found coins are valued for 400 million euros
A judge of the Court of the District of Tampa, in Florida, ordered yesterday (dawn in Spain) to the company "cazatesoros" Odyssey Marine Exploration who returns to Spain the thousands of liberated coins of gold and silver opposite to the Portuguese coasts of The Algarve and that the Spanish Government claims for belonging supposedly to the ship “Our Lady of the Mercedes”, a vessel of war sunk in 1804.
07-09-2008 the Country
Suit for 17.000 kilograms of gold and silver - 130 proprietors of the treasure of Odyssey
Thousands of progeny of the owners of the golden load and silver that La Mercedes sank with the frigate might claim his rights on this treasure found by the American company Odyssey Marine Exploration in May, 2007. Documents deposited in the File of the Indies (Seville), to which THE COUNTRY has had access, prove that big part of the load (697.621 weight) of the ship belonged to approximately 130 Spanish merchants. The rest (253.606 weight) was a money of the Crown.
