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600,000 coins from sunken galleon being flown to Spain after
five-year legal fight with U.S. treasure hunters for $500m trove (Daily Mail)
five-year legal fight with U.S. treasure hunters for $500m trove (Daily Mail)
the whole story, with great pictures, at link aboveA $500million trove of silver coins recovered from a Spanish galleon sunk by British warships in 1804 was due to be flown from the United States to Spain today in the concluding part of a five-year legal battle.
Spain's ambassador to the U.S., Jorge Dezcallar de Mazar, was expected to watch on when the two Spanish military C-130s take off from a Florida Air Force base with the 17-ton stash.
They will be loaded with 594,000 silver coins and other artefacts, packed into the same white plastic buckets in which they were brought to the U.S. by Florida-based Odyssey Marine Exploration in May 2007.
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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 a 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.
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