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Odyssey Denies Spain's Claim To Shipwreck Spoils

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By RUSSELL RAY | The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 9, 2008

Tampa-based Odyssey Marine Exploration, which recovered a sunken treasure from a shipwreck that Spain is now claiming, says there is no conclusive evidence that the treasure it recovered last year came from a Spanish warship.

"There is no hull of a shipwreck at this site," Odyssey said in a statement issued late Thursday night. "What we have found to date is apparently a cargo from a shipwreck as opposed to an actual vessel."

But in court documents filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Tampa, Spain said an inspection of artifacts on the seabed floor where the treasure was found and an analysis of the artifacts and coins recovered by Odyssey show that the shipwreck is, without question, the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, a Spanish warship sunk by the British Navy south of Portugal in 1804.

Spain is demanding that the treasure, 17 tons of colonial-era coins worth an estimated $500 million, be returned to Spain.

"Spain has not abandoned or otherwise relinquished in any way its ownership of Mercedes," Spain said in its court filing.

Reporter Russell Ray can be reached at (813) 259-7870 or rray@tampatrib.com.

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