17 tons of silver coins from sunken ship being returned to Spain

17 tons of silver coins from sunken ship being returned to Spain
February 25, 2012
By Associated Press

TAMPA, Florida -- A 17-ton haul of silver coins, lost for two centuries in the wreck of a sunken Spanish galleon, began its journey back to its home country Friday after the deep-sea explorers who lifted it to the surface lost their claim to ownership.

Two massive cargo planes -- Spanish military C-130s -- took off just after noon from a Florida Air Force base with 594,000 silver coins and other artifacts aboard. They were packed into the same white plastic buckets in which they were brought to the United States by Tampa, Fla.-based Odyssey Marine Exploration in May 2007.

""'""""Odyssey made an international splash when it discovered the wreck, believed to be the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, off Portugal's Atlantic coast near the Straits of Gibraltar. At the time, the coins were estimated to be worth as much as $500 million to collectors, which would have made it the richest shipwreck haul in history.

The Mercedes was believed to have had 200 people aboard when it was sunk.

Spain went ahead with transporting the treasure despite a last-ditch, longshot claim to the treasure by Peru.

On Thursday, the Peruvian government made an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to block transfer of the treasure to give that nation more time to make arguments in federal court about its claim to being the rightful owner. But that appeal was denied Friday by Justice Clarence Thomas.

Odyssey -- which uses a remote-controlled submersible to explore the depths and bring the tiniest of items to the surface -- had previously argued that as the finder it was entitled to all or most of the treasure. The Spanish government filed a claim in U.S. District Court soon after the coins were flown back to Tampa, contending that it never relinquished ownership of the ship or its contents. A federal district court first ruled in 2009 that the U.S. courts didn't have jurisdiction, and ordered the treasure returned.