Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos tweeted on Saturday the discovery of the wreck of San Jose, a Spanish galleon ship. The vessel sank off Cartagena over 300 years ago.
He describes the find as marking a historic milestone in the country's underwater cultural patrimony, reports CNN. The president made a second tweet with a video of the search team at sea.
San Jose had a cargo of gold, silver, gems and jewelry when it was attacked by a British was vessel in June 1708. Described as the "holy grail of shipwrecks," the estimate of the value of its cargo is from $1.5 billion to $17 billion, reports Mashable.
The vessel was transporting jewels from South American colonies to the Spanish king to help finance The War of the Spanish Succession.
However, there is a legal issue over the discovery which Santos excluded in his tweet. That's because the Colombian government was working with Sea Search Armada, a U.S. salvage company, which located the wreckage area in 1981.
The company accused the Colombian government of not fulfilling its agreement to share the proceeds of the treasure. But in 2011, an American court decided in favor of Colombia. Sea Search filed two lawsuits in the U.S. in 2011 and 2015 and even cited that the Colombian Supreme Court decided that the agreement to divide the loot 50-50 between Colombia and Sea Search.
In the 2011 decision, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg wrote, "The Complaint in this case reads like a marriage between Patrick O'Brian glorious-of-age-of-sail novel and a James Buchan potboiler of international intrigue."
Colombia Cultural Minister Mariana Garces Cordoba says all the court decisions favored Colombia. But Sea Search Managing Director Jack Harbeston insists it won in Colombian courts that a new law passed by the Colombian Parliament that gave Sea Search only a 5 percent finder's fee which was further subject to a 45 percent tax as unconstitutional.
Harbeston says the Circuit Court of Barranquilla decided on a 50-50 split which the Colombian Supreme Court upheld.