Colombia has found a Spanish Warship sunk over 300 years ago with treasure estimated as high as $17 billion in gold, silver and precious stones.
“Great news: We found the galleon San Jose!,” President Juan Manuel Santos tweeted.
The multibillion-dollar ship called the San Jose that sunk over 300 years back has been at a centre of a decades-long search that also involved several foreign legal battles.
“Without room for any doubt, we have found, 307 years after it sank, the San Jose galleon,” Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced at a press conference.
While no humans have yet reached the precious wreckage site, the government said autonomous underwater vehicles have gone down there and brought back photos of dolphin-stamped bronze cannons in a well-preserved state that confirms the ship’s identity.
A video released by Santos’s office shows research teams searching a sandy patch of sea floor close to the coast. A black and white spot of pots and bottles and a cannon was visible through the murky water. The officials say the bronze cannons, along with the dimensions and location of the wreck, shows it as the San Jose.
The San Jose, which maritime experts consider the holy grail of Spanish colonial shipwrecks, has remained submerged for over 300 years off the coast of Cartagena even as a legal battle has raged on in U.S., Colombia and Spain over who owns the rights to the $ 17 Billion sunken treasure.
