$500 Million Shipwrecked Treasure Hoard - Odyssey vs. Spain

Discover a mysterious shipwreck, give it a cool code name, secretly haul from it a spectacular treasure of coins possibly worth $500 million, and then announce it to all the world.

What do you get? In this day and age, a free trip to court and mounting legal bills!

The Spanish government is battling Odyssey Marine Exploration, a U.S. treasure hunting company, over their discovery of a shipwreck somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.

Spain contends the find was from a Spanish ship or taken from their waters, making it theirs. Odyssey says the 17th-century shipwreck, they code-named the "Black Swan", was found in international waters and the treasure is legally retrieved.

What’s at stake? 17 tons of booty! More specifically, over 500,000 silver and gold coins that could be worth an estimated $500 million.

The latest news between Spain and Odyssey…

This week media services reported that filings show Odyssey initially valued the treasure at just a few million.

If reflected on the required export documents that were filed to fly the treasure to the U.S., that had to be a delight to Spanish officials who would love to hit at Odyssey’s credibility.

In turn, Odyssey has apparently offered Spain additional information but requires a confidentiality agreement to keep the shipwreck location from becoming publicly known. No deal…

It appears the legal battle will stretch forward. In the meantime, Odyssey is being hurt by the time and money needed to wage that battle. They’ve been suffering some serious cash flow issues this year.

However, they just received a treasure of another sort that will help to keep their doors open - $7 million cash from Fortress Investment Group. That’s a nice haul too but nothing is given for free…

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Here are two previous CoinNews.net articles about this story:

• Is the Shipwrecked $500 Million Coin Treasure Up for Grabs?
• Spain Seizes U.S. Treasure Hunter’s Ship

You can also watch three news videos by the Associated Press and Reuters, by going here:

The Shipwreck Coin Series