Spain suspicious over £250m treasure haul

Authorities in Spain are looking into whether the US company involved in excavating colonial-era treasure from a sunken British ship can be charged with stealing Spanish heritage.

The Florida-based treasure-hunting company, Odyssey Marine Exploration, announced its discovery of gold and silver - worth an estimated £250m - on Friday, but refused to cite the exact whereabouts of the wreck because of security concerns.

They said the coins were found in international waters, therefore outside the jurisdiction of any country and could legally be taken back to the United States.

But the Spanish government has said it thought the statement was "suspicious" after Odyssey sought permission to explore Spanish waters for the wreck of a British ship in January.

The company said it was searching for HMS Sussex, a 17th-century warship which sank in a storm in 1694 near Gibraltar while leading a British fleet into the Mediterranean Sea for war against France.

However, permission was only granted for exploration and did not extend to extraction, the Spanish Culture Ministry said.

The Spanish government has now asked the Spanish Civil Guard to launch an investigation as to whether the company could be charged with theft of Spanish heritage if there was evidence that the haul came from a wreck found within Spanish waters.

Odyssey Marine Exploration vessels, which are berthing in Gibraltar, will also be closely monitored by the Spanish Civil Guard.

The Tampa-based company said it was attempting to recover HMS Sussex under a deal with the British Government, which would be the first public-private arrangement of its kind, for an archaeological excavation of a sovereign warship.

Since the haul of silver and gold was discovered three days ago using undersea robot technology, speculation has been rife as to which of the estimated 400 shipwrecks in the region was the one discovered.

Experts initially thought it might be the English ship, The Merchant Royal, after a US judge signed an order granting Odyssey exclusive salvage rights to a site 40 miles off the south-west tip of the English coast.

Known as the "Eldorado of the seas", the vessel sank off the Isles of Scilly because of bad weather in 1641, laden with treasure from Mexico,

Dr Lane Bruner, a coin expert from the American Numismatic Association, said there were clues about the location in a statement given to a US federal court last autumn.

"They told a judge at that point that they had found the wreck of a 17th-century merchant ship in the Atlantic Ocean, just outside the English Channel.

"So all we can do is put two and two together. It would seem logical, given the timing and everything, that could be the site."

But Odyssey's co-founder and chief executive officer John Morris, refused to be drawn on the ship's identity. He said: "Our research suggests that there were a number of colonial period shipwrecks that were lost in the area where this site is located, so we are being very cautious about speculating as to the possible identity of the shipwreck."

A chartered cargo jet landed recently in the US from Gibraltar to unload containers packed with 500,000 coins expected to fetch $1,000 (£500) each .

Under the agreement with Britain, Odyssey would share any finds with the British government.