It is little surprise that an area so steeped in myth and legend should be the site for a modern day mystery and allegations of piracy. Soon after Odyssey Marine Exploration discovered a long lost ship wreck in the Straits of Gibraltar in May 2007, Spain filed a claim to the treasure. The project code named Black Swan found the wreck and it was initially rumoured to be the Merchant Royal, a 17th century English merchant ship which, at its time of sinking, had on board 100,000 pounds of gold, 400 bars of Mexican silver and nearly 500,000 pieces of eight and other coin making it one of the most valuable ship wrecks of all time.
Why did the Merchant Royal have such a large treasure on board? Well, part of the reason may have been its captain´s money making project. Having spent 3 years trading with the Spanish colonies in the West Indies between 1637 and 1640, the Merchant Royal and her sister ship the Dover Merchant, called in to Cadiz on their way back to London. Reports at the time state that the Merchant Royal was leaking badly after her long voyage, but when a Spanish ship caught fire in Cadiz port carrying treasure to convert in to money to pay Spain´s 30,000 soldiers in Flanders, Captain Limbrey saw an opportunity to bolster his wages by volunteering the services of his ship the Merchant Royal to drop off this treasure in Antwerp on his way back to London. Unfortunately, her leaking hull combined with the breakdown of her pumps caused her to sink in September 1641. Eighteen men died and Captian Librey and 40 of his men got away in boats and were later picked up by the Dover Merchant.

You can understand how the Odyssey Marine Exploration team first thought it might be the Merchant Royal due to the massive quantity of treasure on board but it is now thought that the wreck is actually the Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, a Spanish ship which sank in 1804, although this has not been conclusively proved.

Why all the legal argument? Well, shortly after the discovery became public in 2007, Odyssey flew 17 tons of coins worth 308 million pounds, mostly in silver coin, from Gibraltar by private jets to a secure, unidentified location in Florida, USA. This resulted in Spain filing a claim in the case. Some individuals, descendants of those who had paid to have their goods transported aboard the Mercedes have also filed claims against the company. The US Federal Court, without a trial, dismissed the case determining it not to have jurisdiction and in 2012 ordered the coins and artifacts be returned to the claimant, Spain. Subsequently, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeal upheld the finding but have not commented on the issue of ownership.

In 2007 Odyssey said that most of the treasure and coins they recovered are believed to be from one particular shipwreck but it was likely that artifacts from other wrecks had been mixed in with the recovered treasure as the wreck lay in an area known to contain many colonial era wrecks. It was intended that the correct identity of the ship would be disclosed following further examination of the recovered treasure. However, Atlanta judge Mark Pizzo declared that the trove came from the Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, a Spanish frigate sunk by a British Squadron off Cape St Mary, Portugal in October 1804. He rejected Odysseys argument that it was not possible to say from which vessel the coins came from as they were so widely scattered on the ocean bed. The judge went on to say that the treasure hunting company had clearly set out to find the Mercedes and had been successful. He argued that the coin all dates from prior to 1804 and matched cargo which had been minted in Lima, Peru. He also stated that cannon found close-by matched the cannon of the Mercedes. The rightful ownership of the coin lies with the descendants of the 250 sailors who died when the ship blew up but the whereabouts of a further 400,000 coins remains a mystery.

Even if the wreck is proven to be the Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, the question, still has to be answered – was she on a sovereign mission or a commercial voyage? The difference matters due to an international maritime law known as the doctrine of sovereign immunity, active-duty naval vessels on a noncommercial mission remain the property of the countries that commissioned them. Spain thus claimed the exclusive property of the wreck and its cargo but Odyssey insisted the ship’s last voyage, from Montevideo to Cadiz, was commercial in nature. The majority of coins onboard were owned by private merchants, not by Spain.
Odyssey lost every round of the US Federal Court battles as the Spanish government painted them as modern day pirates. Peru, Bolivia and Chile entered the arena as the metals for the coins were mined and the coins struck in the Andes. Spain did overcome a last minute appeal by the Peruvian government to block any transfer of the treasure back to Spain on the grounds that Peru did not gain its independence until 1824 but the country´s lawyers argued it was more than a simple colony at the time of these events because it was the local seat of the Spanish crown when the ship sank. The Spanish Queen Sofia has however promised that some of the treasure would be loaned to the country for display in museums.

It would appear that the Odyssey´s decision to use Gibraltar to transfer the haul discovered by underwater robots at 1,100 feet below the surface may have been an error. It lead to a tense stand-off in the waters just off Gibraltar. Then shortly after the coin was spirited away to Florida, a Spanish warship forced the Odyssey´s 250ft salvage vessel in to the nearby Spanish port of Algeciras where the vessel was searched and the captain, Sterling Vorus, arrested but later freed.

Now into the affray enters Wikileaks who released a state department cable revealing that US diplomats had offered to side with Spain against Odyssey . The US ambassador in Madrid sought to tie the treasure to attempts by an American citizen , Claude Cassier, to recover a painting bv Camille Pissarro which hangs in the Thyssen Bornemisza in Madrid. Mr Cassier had learned that the painting entitled “Rue Saint Honore, Afternoon, rain effect”, from his family collection was hanging in the renowned Madrid museum. His grandfather, a Baron, had lent the family collection of 775 paintings to the museum for a period of nine and half years in exchange for 50million dollars. Upon the death of the Baron some 5 years in to the deal, the Spanish government purchased the whole collection for a reported 327 million dollars. Having already renovated the Villahermosa Palace close to the Prado to store the collection. The museum is operated by a foundation which by law has several government officials on its board.

In 2001 the Commission for Art Recovery approached the Thyssen and petitioned Spain to recover the Cassirer´s family heirloom. The effort was unsuccessful despite Spain having agreed to the Washington Principles, an agreement signed in 1998 by Germany and 43 other countries pledging to search their collections for Nazi looted art in order to return it to its rightful owners. Mr Cassirer further filed for the right to sue Spain and the Thyssen Foundation. Permission was granted on 12 August 2010, but sadly Mr Cassirer died in September of that year aged 89.

Rightly or wrongly, the treasure has now returned to Spain ending a five year court battle which took more turns than a Peruvian mountain road.