So basically, if a anyone finds a shipwreck that has gold or silver, either never claim which ship it came from, or just melt the gold and silver down into bars. Otherwise, a government will steal the treasure from those who did all the work.

If I find gold coins while diving international waters nobody would ever know what I found.

Spain should pay the COSTS of the Recovery Either way since they claim something they were unwilling to go after themselves. This kind of recovery of the loss thousands of coins will encourage unreported claims. Simply melt the gold or metals and sell that way. The heritage ppl are creating self defeat.

At the time of the sinking of the 'military vessel,' Spain's government wrote the ship off to being 'lost at sea.' And after the sinking, for several hundred years, made no effort to locate the ship, or collect the lost gold and silver. Now, someone comes along who has developed and equipped themselves with what was needed to collect the valuables from the sea floor. And this was in international waters, well outside any country's territorial waters. Only then, did the Spanish government declare that the gold and silver was part of Spanish national heritage. Imagen all those lost souls, all the lost lives, that died in the name of Spanish expansion and the hunt for more gold. What gold and silver, that was found there in the wreckage, was more than likely, they product of Spanish theft and murder, in Central or South Americas. In the recent past, it has been well known and accepted, that 'finder's keepers,' was the rule of thumb for shipwrecks. If you go out and find it, then it or the wealth within it, is yours. It's the greed of politicians now, that interferes with this. And who truly believes that the UN wants to protect the wrecks on the bottom of the world's seas, even as their own fishing vessels rake the bottom with trolling nets? And what of countries outside the UN's members, like China, which has been fishing the world's seas now for years, even entering the coastal waters of other nations? They fish with impunity, and don't give a damn what the rest of the world says about it.

As if Spain hadn’t already stolen enough riches, historically. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

In the eyes of the Spaniards " oh its a heritage, the gold is ours , you should be ashamed treasure hunters " what about all the blood soaked gold they took from the new world ?

I was the scuba diver on the crew of the Capitana that found 4 1/2 million dollars in gold Spanish coins from the 1715 fleet, off of Vero beach in 2015.

In the case of the Mercedes frigate, I feel as though if something has been lost at sea for hundreds of years, and the Government was not actively searching for the ship or it's contents, the treasure is up for grabs for whoever has the money, time, and risk tolerance to go looking for it. But that's just my opinion. And opinions are like belly buttons. Everybody has one. Unisco is typical of any situation where large sums of money or potential wealth creation are possible and government and politics get involved. They write laws that make the action nearly cost-prohibitive for mom&pop companies and the governments get a piece of the action, despite having no financial risk in the treasure hunting. If the treasure hunter goes broke because he never finds anything of value to cover exploration costs, the government has no skin in the game. If the treasure hunter finds something, the government gets half. Seems unfair.

If I was the CEO of Odyssey I would have returned the coins to the bottom of the sea. Even though I'd be in contempt. 10 years of Odyssey working and Portugal knew they were there and didn't say anything. They were just waiting for them to do all the work. Since when is shipwreck hunting a crime ?

Where did Spain ger hold of that gold in the first place!!

i'm from Sri Lanka and we have many findings in history books that ships full of gold, Saphire and elephants never reached China.. but our countries are poor to execute missions like these :( (around 377 AD-1000 AD).. loved this docu...

So, treasure hunters do all the work, countries think its to expensive and dont do the salvage.. and when its salvaged they say.. you cannot have it cause its ours.. let them pay the operation or they cannot claim. Easy.

Don't ya love all those historical people against treasure hunters. First the treasure was stolen, then lost by the thieves who stole it. Not much said about those guys. Someone spends thousands of hours of work and money to find and recover, only to have it taken away by someone who invested nothing in it at all. I would destroy the lot.

I was once on an island off Jakarta - very little tourists very quiet place ! I was approached on day 2 by an old man on the beach that asked me in broken English if I knew what coins he had found over the years in his fishing nets. I said I cloud try - The next day he brought some coins - They were from the 1700 Dutch And he had a silver dollar and a French frank that were huge and very heavy! As I was in the middle of know where I believed what he was telling me and he asked me if I would pay him $100 for all of them. I did as I thought I would take a gamble . When I arrived home to the uk I looked on line and these coins were worth thousands the franc and the dollar being worth over $20,000 each - I found a collector in London and went to see him one weekend, very exited to find out the exact worth of my new found fortune. Within Minutes of being in the collectors office he told me they were all Chinese fakes !!! Lesson learned here- Don’t trust old men

Odessey has to drop the coins back so that Spain can go for it..... that's my opinion 😜

What a beautiful documentary, never expected the informations revealed here! well done 👍

if it was so important to Spain then they should have taken the effort to retrieve it from the bottom of the ocean..i understand the historical heritage factor, but they should have subtracted the cost of the project from the value of the reward..that is, if they were trying to keep it Real.

Only halfway through, but the blindingly obvious point is that if it were not for the treasure hunters none of this stuff would ever be found/recovered. The eggheads need to make a deal with the guys who have the ability/technology. Both/and not either/or.

It's salvage period. It's already been lost. And it's not just the oceans. It's getting more and more difficult to gold pan, mine, rock hound, and don't you dare take a metal detector looking for treasures on public lands. They want it all or leave it be or suffer fines and imprisonment. I grew up reading of Lost gold mines, treasures etc. Now their all off limits.

I spent years in the Alaska fishing fleet both long lining Halibut and netting sockeye and coho salmon. As much as I support the fishing industry, I’ll never support bottom trawling. It makes a sustainable industry unsustainable with it’s destructiveness and gives every fisherman a bad name. I hope the entire world wakes up and puts an end to it.

I’m happy for the guys who find treasure it gives me a look into the past

Interesting documentary. Thanks @Endevr

Ummm, so after odyssey spends $ and recovers the treasure , Spain says wait that’s ours we were flying a military flag??? Didn’t all vessels commissioned by the queen fly her colors ? Idk I’m not an expert on maritime history but seems to me Spain just wanted that treasure...

Amazing and insightful documentary .

I would have dumped the treasure back in the ocean before handing it over for free.

Allow each government the opportunity to buy the treasures at market value. If they can’t afford it, then it goes to the recovery experts.

Excellent documentary, thank you.

Fantastic vid. Dig it up! Does no one any good disintegrating on the bottom of the ocean.

They found it and brought it up...in my book the once lost treasure goes to the finders. Of course the original owners should have first dibs by paying perhaps a tiny reduced price for it and paying all salvage fees which is the decision of the salvagers...

Well,, those Gold Coins should have been returned to the depths of the ocean ...... If the Government of Spain wants them, Go get them yourself...

The ironic thing is by forbidding people to profit from finding the stuff they are encouraging historical items to stay lost. Publically funded operations have alot less chance to be funded in the first place. So the more we forbid private, for-profit recovery the less we will recover in general. There has to be an expiration on some of this stuff. If a country chooses to not attempt to recover something for 100s of years then it should be fair game.

Lmao Spain claiming the gold they stole is still theirs. Naw not after what they've done it should be who ever gets it.

You also need to remember that at the time of the sinking they did have insurance on the ship and they were paid for the loss of those coins. So they have been paid, and they get the coins.

The myopic attitude of the academics over 'protection' of wrecks, notwithstanding the damage fishing and unsupervised looting is causing; coupled with the ludicrous statement by the Spanish academic that each individual coin a duplicate of 600,000, is like Mona Lisa so valuable it needs to be preserved and when most are hidden away in a vault illustrates their absurd position.

All videos are great! Please make a video about the company RioTinto, which in the heart of the oldest European civilization - Serbia (7529. according to our old calendar), is trying to create a huge environmental disaster. Thanks!

Such an interesting video !!!! More complex as originally thought.

Imagine if they were pulling up old Ledgers of DEBT owed to people, would they be so worried about preserving that? It's clear to me it's about the monetary value of the gold and silver and clearly nothing else. I would bet if they were pulling up iron and wood no one would care.

Going diving... ;)

9:10 'There is some more ?' That really cracked me up !!! ;-P

Okay, I'm weighing in on what I watched here so far (halfway point). I feel if Spain had done its due diligence, they should've ponied up for salvage operations soon as this Spanish frigate was discovered, and paid professionals for every expense during this long, tedious process, plus 10% of the overall value of recovered material. That is just being fair. But Spain, a relatively poor nation, is hiding being obscure and antiquated laws to be greedy bastards and nothing more. Because of this nation (and of course many others), they are essentially driving treasure hunters into underground operations who will make every attempt to hide their discovery from them and sell these material in black markets.

Spanish government “noooo you can’t just find the gold we stole and then lost”

imo, these "now called treasures" were intended to be traded. Now that they are founf by whoever, let some samples be put aside for museums and conservation; as for the rest, let they be brought to public market to be object of trade between customers and sellers.

If it sank and I find it, it belongs to me.

That's ridiculous to leave a reck ship and it's treasures on the bottom to rot because of some pots and pans from 100 years ago.. if it's so important to museums why aren't they going down to get old heritage

Just love the Bureaucrat Karen. Only the bureaucrats know whats best.

Amazing information and videography about unique realization of past incidents revealing the truths of times. Thanks for sharing.

This Court Ruling assures there will be no artifacts to be had for Treasure Ship hunters - and no Treasure Ships or artifacts to be had for museums without Treasure Hunters! It's a lose - lose proposition! Congrats 👏 👏 👏

Mafia: Pay us for the right to do business Government: Hold my beer

Every plane, train or car crash is a heritage site. OMG they've got to be preserved for posterities sake.

Finders keepers, this treasure was stolen from ancient South America nations. It doesn’t belong to Spain. The finders invested so much to get it, without their efforts nothing would be found.

Thanks! Supper program from You!

Anyone know what wreck footage 30:20 is from? I see a sole of a shoe and what looks like part of a rib cage.

finders keepers! If private companies wouldn't find these wrecks then nobody would benefit from it because it would be at the bottom of the ocean for no one to see!

moral to the story is if you find lost treasure keep your mouth shut

The only way these exhibitions can successfully continue is it becomes a 'win-win' situation - both for the researcher/risky discoverer . . . and its' initial owner, before the ship sunk ! 😀

Wow, amazing, corrosive as the ocean deep they find letters.😉🤔

I believe at some point they will find a shipwreck from 13000 or more years ago and finally prove we have been here in an advanced way for much longer than is currently known.

I always love how these so-called archaeologists want to say oh we need to save it for everyone while they just kind of funnel away into some damn basement like the Smithsonian or claim it as theirs when they stole it from the indigenous natives that were in the country that they got it from in the first place

I think this is one of the most provocative videos I've watched. Both sides seem to have valid arguments.

Very interesting documentary

Unesco : Wreckage hunters destroys heritage. Wreckage hunters: Trawler and trawl fishing destroys ship wrecks.

The riches (600,000 coins) of the Mercedes should be returned to the South Americans whose ancestors were enslaved mining the gold and silver, not the exploiters.

I love how there important historical area's yet there always being destroyed by fishing nets and underwater currents

Nice video you have to take calculated assessments to to see if its freezable to to explore. So expensive

I would have dumped it all back into the deep ocean somewhere and let Spain go and find it. lolol

The treasure hunters give access to the common man to aquire treasure, instead of it all being locked away in a vault never to see the light of day again! Viva the treasure hunters!

Thanks!

Brilliant informative Documentary , with Excellent narration....

As an American who metal detects sometimes I'm jealous of other countries who have history that goes so far back. The finds you could make are crazy.

to the spoils go to those daring enough to search for them!

Is that Kiefer Sutherland 🤔

A lesson, if you discover something truly precious don't brag about it, don't put it on the notice board, just be discreet and enjoy in silence.

I see that pirates have returned, they're calling themselves "Museums" now. As for "culturally significant", you mean in memory of the civilizations you butchered and enslaved to acquire it?

anything thats lost to the sea should belong to those that manage to get it to the surface.

Awesome!

You could drop robotic sensors on every wreck you care about that can communicate with a central office. Would be relatively cheap to do if you really care.

I'm going to the Bermuda triangle. Who's going with me for humanity's collective heritage? Who owns the triangle will be a golden question.

preserving the past, while destroying the future, how ironic

Where do they get these prices from on how much a day it is to float a boat

So if they are salvaged and then claimed again by an original owner or state, if there was an insurance claim do they have to return the insurance funds or does the Insurer have a claim against the ship contents?

Is it just me, or is the audio off? There’s a constant resonant tone whenever water is shown, like the same sample played over and over

If you where under the ocean would you want to be left or found as long as things are collected properly they should own it if they find it then they can ouction it and anyone can buy it then it will all be saved

Very nice video

The idea of someone finding something hundreds of years lost and others feeling entitled to it for whatever reason is insane to me. It sounds like the greedy ones are those that covet what their neighbors have

Tell Spain to recover the 600,000 coins themselves and scatter them back into the sea. They don't have the know how to do it, otherwise they would have done it themselves.

Is that a Fokke wulf 190 and a Hienkel at 19.20 !

6:50 im hearing for around 20 years that only 5 % of the seas are explored, they dont explore it anymore ?

34:00 UK govt. got their split and Odyssey got their percentage, was there any involvement from India?

Human greed never seems to amaze me.

This documentary is quite good. It gets comment from both sides.

not a single word, about the sailors who lost their lives on these shipwrecks.

What has to be preserved is the fact that Spain used South American slaves to get this gold in the first place and then wanted to bring it to Spain all those years ago. Shouldn't South America be the 'owners' of that treasure?

whatever. treasure hunters deserve to make a living. It is high risk and should pay off.

I think trawling helps find possible shipwreck sites as well

There is a Portuguese war ship right before the coast in my town, you can see the wooden beams on low tide..... now comes the kicker, if you touch it you'll create an international incident.... because there used to be a fight over it, Portugal wanted it back, but we didn't want to pay for the excavation/archeology, nor did the Portuguese.... so when you touch it YOU have to pay for that AND send the found treasure back to Portugal..... Have fun finding out where i live :D (Happy hunting!)

If you don't pay treasure hunters the market price why wouldn't they just melt down the gold and sell it . And therefore you don't get the objects

23:22 - If I was Jeff Bezos, I would get into treasure hunting.

And than the international court tells you to give it back to the original shipwreck country.

Message received. Treasure companies pursuing shipwrecks should never again announce what ships they're working on or where they found it. And, if they can't sell the recovered artifacts as artifacts without the threat of government theft, then they should just melt it all down and sell the metal.

If these countries want to claim ownership why don't they go find it themselves instead of taking it from someone who did find it a little shady