Explorers Who Discovered A $17 BILLION Shipwreck Are Refusing To Cash It In Because They Don’t Know How To Split It Up

Source - It has been described as the ‘holy grail’ of shipwrecks containing one of the most valuable hauls of treasure ever lost at sea.

Named the San Jose, the 18th-century Spanish galleon was found three years ago off the coast of Colombia. Now new details have emerged about the discovery of the shipwreck, which contains £12.6 billion ($17 billion) worth of treasure. 

According to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), the San Jose was located by an underwater autonomous robot. The institution said it was keeping its involvement in the discovery quiet out of respect for the Colombian government. 

The exact location of the shipwreck currently remains a secret due to a legal dispute regarding who owns the wealth of treasures on board.

The 62-gun, three-masted galleon, went down on June 8, 1708, with 600 people on board as well as a treasure of gold, silver and emeralds during a battle with British ships in the War of Spanish Succession.  The ship was found submerged off the coast of Baru in what is now Colombia, near the Rosario Islands.

It was discovered in 2015 by a team of international experts, the Colombian Navy and the country’s archaeology institute.  The treasure has been the subject of legal battles between several nations as well as private companies.    

Few government spokespeople will be able to speak further on the galleon until more investigations are completed, Mr Santos said.  It was unclear how much of the body of the ship remained and whether it would be brought to dry land.

So let me get this straight. These people found this shipwreck two YEARS ago and haven’t dug it up because they don’t know who it belongs to? And this is after they found out it has seventeen-BILLION dollars’ worth of gold and jewels on board? We toss around a lot of hypotheticals at the office so I’m not going to get into the ‘what would you do for $17 billion?’ debate.  But let me tell you, I’m about five minutes away from booking a plane ticket to the Caribbean, strapping cement blocks on my feet, and dragging the treasure to shore myself. The craziest part about this whole story is that this was their Super Bowl. And they completely blew it. They could’ve been set for life and now they’re going to get nothing. All because they’re too afraid to cut through some imaginary red tape from 1708. It’s confirmed my long-standing theory that treasure hunters are some of the biggest idiots on the planet. They get so worked up about finding something that may or may not exist that when they do find it they shit the bed.

I hope that whoever has the balls to go down there gets to keep it all. On second thought, I hope that whoever goes down there finds nothing. I’m too immature to handle the fact that some dude can become a billionaire via buried treasure. The only person I’d be happy for would be that old lady from Titanic. She deserves to get her necklace back.

At any rate, whoever’s in charge of the site better hurry up and claim it before someone else does. Considering they’re off the coast of Columbia I’m sure it’s only a matter of time until the cartels get their hands on it. Oh well, it’ll be interesting to see if the wreck lives up to all the hype. I guess we’ll have to wait a few more years to find out.