Spain: Lack of Details ‘Suspicious' In $500M Shipwreck Discovery

MADRID, Spain — The Spanish government is investigating whether a crime was committed by an American company that said it had found $500 million worth of coins in an Atlantic Ocean shipwreck.

Odyssey Marine Exploration, based in Tampa, Fla., announced on Friday that it had found hundreds of thousands of Colonial-era silver and gold coins in the wreck, but didn't release details about the ship or the wreck site, citing security concerns.

The Spanish Culture Ministry said it found it "suspicious" that the company didn't release those details, the national news agency Efe reported. Odyssey did say that the site is beyond the territorial waters or legal jurisdiction of any country.

Earlier this year, Odyssey won permission from the Spanish government to resume a suspended search for the wreck of the HMS Sussex, which was leading a British fleet into the Mediterranean Sea for a war against France in 1694 when it sank in a storm off Gibraltar.

The Spanish Culture Ministry said those permissions to the American treasure-hunting firm referred only to exploration and not to extraction, Efe said.

Odyssey had already begun exploration work off southern Spain for the British vessel but suspended it in 2005 after complaints from Spain. The recovery is being attempted under a deal with the British government, the first such public-private arrangement for an archaeological excavation of a sovereign warship.