The story of the San José galleon is a movie story. And this is not one of adventures, but of political tensions between several countries, indigenous communities and even the occasional company of ‘treasure hunters’. That’s because it sank in the Atlantic 316 years ago with a great deal of treasure (one of more than 1,500 Spanish ships at the bottom of the oceans) and everyone claimed ownership of it. Former president Juan Manuel Santos described it as “one of Colombia’s greatest treasures.”

Now Santos is being investigated for alleged archaeological plunder.

treasure ship. San José was an impressive ship. Born in the shipyards of Guipúzcoa, she sailed for the Caribbean in 1706. It was a ship 40 meters long, three-masted, with a capacity of 64 guns and a large loading capacity, because one of its tasks was to return treasures to Spain. It hasn’t ended well since English pirates destroyed it at the Battle of Barú in 1708.

As a result, it sank off the coast of Cartagena. It is estimated that it had a crew of 600 people and 10 of them survived. The warehouse was filled to the brim with gold, precious stones and jewels from the mines of Peru, Bolivia and Mexico. How much? Well… According to some sources, $20,000 million. 17,000 million according to others. What is clear is that it is well loaded and its historical value is monumental.

Soap opera. We jump in time to 1981, when Sea Search Armada, an American treasure hunting company, claims to have located the galleon and forwarded the coordinates to the Colombian government. Its price was half that of the treasure, but in 2015 Juan Manuel Santos claimed to have found the remains of the galleon.

Sea Search Armada requested information to confirm that these coordinates were not the coordinates they had been given years ago, and it turned out that they were a mile or two off from the coordinates they were given in the 80’s. Colombia said they found these coordinates, and Sea Search Armada filed a lawsuit against the Government for 40 billion pesos. This situation caused Colombia, which announced in 2017 that it would extract 200 tons of gold from the seabed, to file a countersuit.

And Spain came. In the same year 2015, Spain had invoked its sovereignty over the galleon, and now they were the ones who wanted precise information about the location and condition of the ship. Spain defended and claimed part of San José’s underwater heritage, following previous cases such as the case of the Mercedes frigate against the Odissey company.

But of course, whose treasures was the Spanish ship carrying when it sank in Colombia? At this point, Bolivian indigenous communities such as Qhara Qhara come into play and state that the treasure is in international waters and therefore do not belong to Colombia, and they also demand the legitimacy of the resources extracted in their own country. Spanish invasions.

looting investigation. Based on precedent, with a still-debated wreckage and “Archaeological context of the shipwreck of the San José galleon. This is the complaint of historian Francisco Hernando Muñoz; An archaeologist specializing in deep contexts from the University of Southampton claimed in a forum with the University of Northern Barranquilla that he had made a technical-scientific demonstration of apparent intrusion.“.

This means that the Santos government is conducting research on the remains without permission, while the entire matter is being investigated even by international organizations. In fact, as we read in EFE, the Investigation and Impeachment Commission of the Colombian House of Representatives will open an investigation against former President Santos for “trespassing and plundering” the Spanish galleon.

This is not a very rare situation.. It might seem like an extraordinary thing, but it’s actually not that strange. We have already mentioned that Spain and the Odyssey company are fighting over the power of the Mercedes frigate, but these fights between governments and treasure hunting companies, even between several governments, have been seen on other occasions.

Another example is the Treasure of Alacranes recovered from a Spanish ship, or the case that France won against the GME company for the ownership of the ship La Trinité, which sank off Cape Canaberal in the 16th century. What is clear is that the new season of the San José soap opera will begin when the “plunder” accusations against Santos become clear.

Pictures | Wikipedia and the Presidency of the Republic of Colombia

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