0:01

This is planet money from

0:03

NPR. Ten years ago, Mike

0:05

Purcell was on one of his missions

0:07

on a ship in the Caribbean

0:10

Sea off the coast of Columbia,

0:12

and for about a week, every

0:14

night, he had been sending out

0:17

his autonomous underwater vehicle to search

0:19

the sea floor. I bet Pughal

0:21

along that coast to Columbia

0:24

every four miles. There's a

0:26

ship. A sunken ship. This autonomous

0:28

vehicle that Mike helped develop

0:30

is like a little underwater

0:32

drone. It would scan the

0:34

bottom of the ocean and

0:36

record whatever it came across.

0:38

And one day, it came

0:40

across a very, very big

0:42

object. Yeah, we see something in

0:44

the sonar that is a possible,

0:46

yes. A possible yes. Mike gets

0:49

called in for all kinds of

0:51

jobs like this. He was once

0:53

asked to find Amelia Earhart's plane.

0:55

No luck. Another time to locate

0:57

this Air France plane that went

1:00

down between Rio de Janeiro and

1:02

Paris. That one, they did find.

1:04

This time, a private group and

1:06

the Colombian government wanted his

1:09

help finding a 300-year-old shipwreck

1:11

that was the stuff of

1:13

legend. The Spanish galleon, the

1:15

San Jose. It was one of

1:18

the most famous shipwrecks and maybe

1:20

the most valuable one of all-time.

1:22

To investigate, they sent the

1:24

drone back down to take pictures,

1:27

and when the images came back

1:29

up, Mike and his team crowded

1:31

around this one guy's desk to

1:33

see what they'd found. We're down

1:35

in this pretty old ship in

1:37

this room, that's the big, probably

1:39

smaller than your closet. He's at

1:42

his desk here, and we're just

1:44

looking at it, and I'm behind

1:46

him looking down at the pictures.

1:48

And as they look at these

1:50

grainy, black and white underwater images

1:52

from a few meters off the

1:54

sea floor, they start to make

1:56

things out. There is part of the hall,

1:59

the wood hall. There's a

2:01

hundred tea cups sitting

2:03

on the surface a hundred

2:05

tea cups Just lying there

2:07

nestled into the sand next

2:09

to the fish and crabs.

2:11

Well, we saw cannons We saw the anchor

2:13

we start taking the pictures and put them

2:15

together like in a little bit of a

2:17

mosaic You can see an outline of the

2:19

ship and they see no joke a

2:21

bunch of gold coins I feel like

2:23

my like image of what a

2:26

shipwreck looks like is literally that like

2:28

a chest with gold coins Spilling

2:30

out of it. Yeah You're telling me

2:32

that's actually real. That's actually what

2:34

the picture showed you. Yeah, well They

2:37

were really spilling out, but they

2:40

were there maybe not in a

2:42

chest, but scattered about the

2:44

seafloor Mike and his team were

2:46

pretty sure this was the

2:48

San Jose. We found it We

2:50

knew we found it the San Jose

2:52

was a Spanish galleon that

2:54

sank in 1708 with billions of

2:56

dollars worth of gold and

2:59

silver and tea cups aboard They

3:01

sent the big news back

3:03

about a week later when they

3:05

returned to port They were

3:07

told they had a visitor then the

3:09

president and everything they came on board

3:11

and we chatted with him briefly

3:13

about finding it Wait, you chatted with the

3:15

president of Columbia. Yes. So

3:17

He He

3:21

was very happy it was found. there's

3:24

no doubt about that This was 10

3:26

years ago and that shipwreck is

3:28

still sitting on the bottom of

3:30

the seafloor Because while the Colombian

3:32

government is clearly invested in this

3:34

ship They are not the

3:36

only ones the battle that sank

3:38

the San Jose was fierce And

3:41

so is the battle over who

3:43

deserves control of its shipwreck and

3:45

all its billions of dollars of

3:47

treasure Maybe it turns out to be

3:49

20 billion. Maybe it's five billion.

3:51

I don't know but It seems to

3:53

me that they're lining up to

3:55

fight over who gets it so who

3:58

will make out in the end I'm

4:00

not sure. Are you in

4:02

line? Do you have a

4:04

story? All I want is

4:06

a teacup. Just a teacup.

4:08

Hello and welcome to Planet

4:11

Money. I'm Erica Barris. And

4:13

I'm Mary Childs. So the

4:15

San Jose shipwreck was found.

4:17

But it is not clear

4:19

who it actually belongs to.

4:22

Turns out shipwrecks with billions

4:24

of dollars worth of stuff

4:26

on them can get pretty

4:28

confusing and contentious. Columbia, Spain,

4:30

American financiers, South American indigenous

4:32

groups. Everyone wants a say

4:35

in what should happen to

4:37

the San Jose. And because

4:39

the laws that govern this

4:41

stuff can overlap and the

4:43

jurisdictions can be so murky,

4:46

every single group kind of

4:48

has a valid argument. Today

4:50

on the show, the fight

4:52

for the San Jose. What

4:54

one 300-year-old shipwreck can teach

4:56

us about just how hard

4:59

it is to untangle the

5:01

legacy of colonialism. Support for

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5:40

To Columbians, the ship that

5:42

Mike Purcell found. plays a

5:45

huge role in the country's

5:47

cultural imagination. To them, it

5:49

was another Eldorado, the Lost

5:51

City of Gold. The great

5:53

Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez

5:56

even wrote about the ship.

5:58

In love in the time

6:00

of cholera, one of the

6:02

characters wants to recover the

6:04

San Jose, so the woman

6:07

he loves can bathe in gold. I

6:09

quite frankly thought it was a

6:11

legend. This is Juan Manuel Santos.

6:14

So I really didn't give

6:16

that importance to the San

6:18

Jose until we found it. He

6:20

was the president of Colombia from

6:22

2010 to 2018. The one who

6:25

shook Mike Purcell's hand after they

6:27

found the San Jose in 2015.

6:29

President Juan remembers vividly

6:32

when he found out that

6:34

Mike's team had located the

6:36

shipwreck. The minister called me

6:38

and woke me up and when I

6:40

said, listen, I think it's two o'clock

6:42

in the morning, oh my God, Mr.

6:45

President, I'm so sorry, but I have good

6:47

news and she told me. How did you

6:49

feel at that moment? I thought, my God,

6:51

God is in our side. And I started

6:54

to say, how are we going to rescue

6:56

it? How are we going to sell it

6:58

to the world? He could see the legal

7:00

fights coming. But President Juan, he was

7:03

pretty confident that Columbia would win those

7:05

fights. Because for years, people had been

7:07

beating down his door trying to work

7:09

with the government to search Columbia's waters

7:11

for the San Jose. Finally, one group

7:14

got through, the group that Mike Purcell

7:16

was working with. And they made a

7:18

deal to work together and find it.

7:20

And then they could figure out what

7:23

to do with whatever profits. And then

7:25

they found it. So President Juan says...

7:27

It's theirs. That's how it works. I

7:29

remember it because I studied,

7:32

worked and studied in Great

7:34

Britain. And I'm not a

7:36

lawyer, but I remember something

7:38

from the British law that

7:40

the British had always applied

7:42

that principle that said,

7:45

finders, keepers. So you find

7:47

it, you keep it. So I'm

7:49

going to apply that law. With

7:51

a galleon, finder keepers, the garden

7:53

is ours. Okay, so you're already

7:55

doing all these machinations in

7:58

your head. Yes, yes, yes, I mean. I

8:00

didn't sleep that night. And Finders'

8:02

Keepers is a legitimate legal argument.

8:04

It's called the law of fines.

8:07

If someone finds a shipwrecker cargo,

8:09

they have the rights to it,

8:11

so long as that thing was

8:14

abandoned. And Columbia did find it,

8:16

because Mike Purcell and his autonomous

8:18

underwater vehicle, his group was working

8:21

with the Colombian government. And the

8:23

San Jose has been sitting at

8:26

the bottom of the sea for

8:28

over 300 years. That... Sounds abandoned.

8:30

Now, the law finds mostly applies

8:33

to ships found in international waters.

8:35

This ship was in Colombia's territorial

8:37

waters. And, according to the UN's

8:40

Convention on the Law of the

8:42

Sea, countries have some jurisdiction over

8:44

a certain area off their shores,

8:47

and over the removal of archaeological

8:49

and historical objects found in there.

8:52

Not long after he heard the

8:54

news, President Juan gave a speech

8:56

standing at the naval base in

8:59

Caltejana about how Colombia was bearing

9:01

witness to one of the greatest

9:03

discoveries in the history of humanity.

9:06

President Juan is no longer the

9:08

president, but he says the nation

9:10

wants to salvage the San Jose

9:13

and to build a museum. That's

9:15

the plan. This is a Colombian

9:18

galleon and we will do with

9:20

a galleon what we think we

9:22

should do. But historically it's kind

9:25

of not a Colombian galleon. It

9:27

was a Spanish ship. from Spain.

9:29

To learn its history and learn

9:32

about Spain's claim, we called up

9:34

a Spanish expert in these types

9:36

of artifacts. Ricardo, San Marcos.

9:39

that could withstand

9:41

the salty seas

9:44

and was reinforced

9:46

with iron. It

9:48

had three masts

9:51

and 64 brass

9:53

cannons which were

9:55

etched with dolphins.

9:58

Ricardo says the

10:00

San Jose was

10:02

a state -of -the -art

10:05

ship. It was

10:07

a battle of

10:10

war and very

10:12

advanced transport at

10:14

that time. say

10:17

he used the

10:19

latest technology from

10:21

the late century. Oh,

10:23

well, that may not be now,

10:25

but at that time... At

10:27

that time, it was like launching a rocket

10:29

to Mars. Ricardo

10:32

says it had all the

10:34

latest technology. For the 17th century,

10:36

it was like a rocket

10:38

built to go to Mars. Spain

10:40

was a global superpower and

10:42

the route the San Jose took

10:44

was iconic. Well, is,

10:46

of course, the history of

10:49

the Indian race. La Carrera

10:51

de Indias, the maritime network

10:53

that connected Spain to the

10:55

Americas and Asia and created

10:57

what is often called... La

10:59

Primera Globalización. ...the first era

11:01

of globalization, the period when

11:03

Spain helped to establish this

11:05

global network of trade. Porque

11:08

tenen cuenta que los chinos

11:10

traficaban, las sedas y las

11:12

porceladas chinas llegaban a través

11:14

de México. He says Spain was

11:16

sending ships all over the world,

11:18

moving porcelain and silk that came

11:20

from China, gold and silver from

11:22

the Americas. Great for Spain, but

11:24

not everyone liked it. Including the

11:26

English. England and Spain were at

11:29

war over trade and colonies. And

11:31

in June of 1708, the San

11:33

Jose was going from what is

11:35

now Panama to the coast of

11:37

Cartagena before starting its journey to

11:39

Spain. An English ship showed up

11:41

to seize what was on board.

11:44

They shot a cannonball into the

11:46

San Jose, but that ball hit

11:48

the ship's powder reserves. Ooh! So,

11:50

boom, the ship sank, along

11:52

with nearly 600 men. Which makes

11:55

this shipwreck site a Spanish war

11:57

grave. This ship was never

11:59

abandoned, Spain. says it's theirs, and that

12:01

is why they also have a

12:03

claim to the San Jose. The

12:05

San Jose was flying the Spanish

12:07

flag when it sank, and

12:09

warships generally have something called sovereign

12:12

immunity, which means they fall

12:14

under their country's jurisdiction no matter

12:16

where they are. So our

12:18

expert Ricardo, who does not work for

12:20

the Spanish government, says the San Jose

12:22

does not belong to Colombia, it

12:25

belongs to Spain. At legal

12:27

level, a property level, the buque

12:29

is a Spanish state buque, and the

12:32

property is Spanish. No cabe

12:34

duda. No cabe duda, without

12:36

a doubt. Ricardo likens it to

12:38

a sunken embassy. And also

12:40

he says it's a piece of

12:42

history, Spain's history. That's like a capsule

12:44

of time in the day it sank. It's

12:46

like a time capsule from the day it sank.

12:49

There is information about how were

12:51

built. of

12:55

how the products and materials that

12:57

they had loaded into were. He

12:59

says it has information about how

13:01

the boat was constructed, what they

13:03

ate, what they carried, where that

13:05

stuff came from. And Spain has

13:07

successfully made this argument before. Ricardo

13:09

says about 20 years ago, different

13:12

Americans found a different Spanish boat

13:14

sunk by the English. Apparently that

13:16

happened a lot. They recovered more

13:18

than 500 ,000 silver and gold coins.

13:20

And a U .S. court said, the

13:24

Spanish boat had sovereign immunity. So

13:26

Spain ended up getting the coins.

13:28

Ricardo says the same law should

13:30

be applied to the San Jose. Now,

13:36

Spain has tried to insert

13:38

itself into other recent legal proceedings

13:40

around this galleon, but to

13:42

date it hasn't brought its own

13:44

legal case based on sovereign

13:47

immunity. Spain did put out a

13:49

public statement that described the

13:51

San Jose as an underwater tomb

13:53

that, quote, cannot be subject

13:55

to commercial exploitation. End quote. In

13:57

other words, don't just haul

13:59

off this. silver and gold and dumped

14:02

the rest. So that is Spain's

14:04

claim to the San Jose. It

14:06

is an historical claim.

14:08

But if we're talking historical

14:10

claims, there's another group with

14:12

a claim that goes slightly

14:15

further back in history. Because

14:17

while the ship itself may

14:19

have come from Spain, that

14:21

was not true of everything

14:23

on board. To hear this

14:25

claim, I called up Tata

14:28

Samuel Flores Cruz. He was

14:30

in Potosi Bolivia. Which he

14:32

says isn't a jurisdiction of

14:34

the indigenous Karakara Nation. He's

14:36

one of the leaders of the

14:39

Karakara Nation. He's one of the

14:41

leaders of the Karakara. He says

14:43

his interest in the San Jose

14:45

began back in the 1990s. The

14:47

movie Titanic had just come out.

14:49

There were documentaries about it and

14:51

one of those documentaries made a

14:53

reference to the San Jose. And

14:56

he was like, wait. That's

14:58

a ship that we, the

15:00

Karakara, have a connection to.

15:02

He says a lot of

15:04

the silver and gold on

15:06

the ship, came from their

15:08

land. The Potosi. Potosi.

15:10

Potosi is home to

15:12

mines. Gold and silver.

15:14

One of the world's

15:17

largest silver deposits was

15:19

in Potosi. Tata Samuel

15:21

says he became kind

15:23

of obsessed with the San

15:25

Jose. He says his community had

15:27

documents dating back to the 1500s,

15:30

including ones that showed what was

15:32

on board the San Jose when

15:34

it left Poto Sea, a whole

15:37

lot of silver and gold that

15:39

was mined by his ancestors. Possibly

15:41

the same coins that Mike Purcell

15:44

spotted scattered about the sea floor.

15:46

The circumstances under which this mining

15:48

took place were... terrible. Spain had

15:51

a horrific system of forced labor.

15:54

Mistreatment, suffering, humiliation,

15:57

human exploitation.

16:00

that over 8 million indigenous and

16:02

African people died there as they

16:04

worked the mines during Spanish colonialism. What

16:07

Tata Samuel wants is an acknowledgement

16:09

that the silver and gold mined

16:11

in Potosí belongs to them. If

16:13

there's any financial gain that comes

16:15

from what's on board the San

16:17

Jose, he wants to be sure

16:19

that the Karakara benefit. The

16:21

nation Karakara is the owner of all the

16:24

money and gold that came out of the

16:26

colony. He says the Karakara own the

16:28

silver and gold mined during the years

16:30

of colonialism. If

16:37

it's silver from Potosí, it has

16:39

to come back. Or it

16:42

has to fund reparations for the

16:44

Karakara. Tata Samuel's traveled to

16:46

Colombia to meet with government officials

16:48

to make his case. And

16:50

he says they seem open as

16:52

for Spain. que

16:56

se aclame sobre sus canyones,

16:58

sus madera, si He says if they

17:00

want to, they can claim their cannons.

17:02

They would if it even still exists.

17:05

This isn't just about the San Jose.

17:07

In his research, he's found that

17:09

there were all these other sunken ships

17:11

with silver and gold that he

17:13

says the Karakara have a right to.

17:15

and the value we are going to make for us

17:17

is an example, a legal light. also

17:20

a diplomatic struggle, a diplomatic

17:23

process. This ship

17:25

could be an example, could set

17:27

a precedent. Last year, some other indigenous

17:29

groups in Bolivia said they have

17:31

a claim to. And wanted to be

17:33

part of his cause. Tata

17:36

Samuel was like, yeah, great. The

17:38

more the merrier. So the

17:40

Colombians, the Spanish, the Karakara, they

17:42

all seem to have pretty valid

17:44

claims to the San Jose. But

17:47

guess who else also has

17:49

a claim to the San Jose?

17:51

A bunch of American businessmen.

17:53

That's after the break. So

17:58

far, we've talked about three groups who

18:01

are claiming the San Jose

18:03

shipwreck. Columbia, Spain, and the

18:05

Caracara. But there is this

18:07

other group whose claim is

18:09

throwing a wrench in the

18:11

proceedings of all the others.

18:13

They call themselves the sea

18:15

search armada. And their claim

18:17

goes back to the 1980s,

18:19

when shipwrecked treasure hunting was

18:21

kind of having a moment

18:23

in all of the bodies

18:25

of water where wooden chests

18:27

full of gold coins might

18:29

be found. All these private

18:31

companies were out there searching

18:33

for treasure. And one of

18:35

those groups out there searching

18:37

was a pair of American

18:39

businessmen. both named Jim, who

18:41

pooled together millions of dollars

18:43

from investors to look for

18:45

the San Jose. In 1981,

18:47

they say they found pieces

18:49

of wood that looked like

18:51

they'd been blown up. Canons,

18:53

artifacts. So they told Columbia

18:55

the secret coordinates where they

18:57

had found evidence of a

18:59

shipwreck. Now their impression was,

19:01

under Colombian law at the

19:03

time, that entitled them to

19:05

50% of whatever they found.

19:07

They find it, they get

19:09

to keep it, right? But

19:11

almost immediately, they say, the

19:13

Colombian government started changing the

19:15

rules. So Cesarz-Armata sued, all

19:17

the way to Colombia's Supreme

19:19

Court. But in 2020, Colombia

19:21

passed another law, saying, actually,

19:23

everything on that ship is

19:25

cultural patrimony. No one can

19:27

sell it. Which means Cesar's

19:29

Armata would get 50% of

19:31

nothing. So, Caesar Jarmada sued

19:33

Columbia Anu. Yeah, the public

19:35

transmission has started. Microphone, please.

19:37

Last year, more than 40

19:39

years after they say they

19:41

found the San Jose, they

19:43

took their case to the

19:45

permanent court of arbitration. This

19:47

is the first of two

19:49

days of public hearing on

19:51

jurisdiction between C. Search Armada,

19:53

LLC, and the Republic of

19:55

Columbia. This court exists to...

19:57

resolve international disputes. It's the

19:59

place the world goes when

20:01

a government and a business

20:03

interest disagree. In this case,

20:05

C. Search Armada is arguing

20:07

that Colombia is in violation

20:09

of the free trade agreement

20:11

between Colombia and the United

20:13

States. And the fight in

20:15

this court kind of encapsulates

20:17

the four decades of Sea

20:20

Search Armada's dispute with Colombia.

20:22

Sea Search Armada's lawyers say,

20:24

Colombia gave us permission to

20:26

search a little area, and

20:28

we found the San Jose

20:30

in that area, which entitles us to

20:32

half of what we found. The rights,

20:34

and the Supreme Court confirms this,

20:37

the right to treasure is acquired

20:39

by its discovery. Columbia's

20:41

lawyers say what they have been

20:43

saying to the Sea Search Armada.

20:46

You never found it. There was

20:48

nothing in your coordinates or anywhere

20:50

close. By the way, Columbia's lawyers

20:53

declined to comment for this story.

20:55

There's this one exchange that I

20:57

really love between first one of

21:00

Columbia's lawyers and then one of

21:02

the arbiters. Columbia says, Sea Search

21:04

Armada is trying to claim a

21:07

zone that is way too big, miles wide.

21:09

to the discovery area, which includes

21:11

the Galileo San Jose, but

21:13

may include other of the

21:15

hundreds of shipwrecks that are

21:18

supposed to be located in that

21:20

particular area because it is well

21:22

known that it's an area full

21:24

of shipwrecks. And mermaids and other

21:27

underwater species. I don't know why

21:29

I'm hungry. We have beautiful rapes,

21:31

which is the reason why there

21:33

are so many shipwrecks as well. So

21:36

bat our position is that... Even if

21:38

it is true that the Galleon is

21:40

locating those coordinates, this is not

21:42

how it works. C. Search Armada

21:44

says, yeah, that is how it works.

21:47

The ship blew up and it's been

21:49

floating around on the sea floor for

21:51

300 years. It's gonna be spread out

21:54

by now. C. Search Armada's case before

21:56

the tribunal court will reconvene at the

21:58

end of this year. This whole

22:00

thing is now going on

22:03

year 44. Okay, so

22:05

everybody has a claim. Colombia

22:07

and the group that financed

22:09

Mike Purcell's voyage. Spain, the

22:11

Caracara Sea Search Armada. Because

22:13

since the San Jose Sank

22:16

in 1708, power has shifted

22:18

so much. The way we

22:20

think about territory and land

22:22

and ownership has shifted. And

22:24

we are left trying to

22:27

use today's tools to resolve

22:29

something that started hundreds of

22:31

years ago. This is all

22:33

really complicated. And if

22:35

you're wondering why nobody has just

22:37

gone and brought the San Jose

22:39

up from the seafloor, it's partly

22:41

for legal reasons the sea search

22:43

armada has an injunction. But also

22:45

because in the years after it

22:47

was found, there was a giant

22:49

Colombian naval ship floating over the

22:51

San Jose, guarding it. Maybe

22:54

the simplest possible way to claim it.

23:09

This episode of Planet Money was produced

23:11

by Sam Yellowhorse Kessler with help from

23:13

Willa Rubin and edited by Keith Romer. It

23:15

was fact checked by Sierra Juarez and

23:17

engineered by Neil Rouch with help from Robert

23:19

Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

23:21

Thank you to Nicolette Kahn, Carla

23:23

Ron Phillips, Leonardo Moreno Alvarez, Jose Maria

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Lancha, and Mariano Javier Asnar Gomez. And

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before we go, we just want to

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