Plans have just been announced for a deep-water expedition to explore the wreck and validate the presence of the supposed sunken goodies. The first port of call is to conduct scientific research to determine which pieces around the 1,969-foot (600-meter) deep shipwreck can be extracted.
The government plans to invest $4.5 million this year to explore a sunken 62-gun, three-masted galleon that was ambushed while it was on its way to Cartagena, Colombia.
To much excitement in 2015, the wreck of a Spanish ship laden with treasure that was sunk by the British more than 300 years ago was found off the Colombian coast. Then President Juan Manuel Santos tweeted: "Great news! We have found the San José galleon."
President Gustavo Petro has made it a priority to lift the vessel before his term comes to an end in 2026.
In November last year, Colombia’s Culture Minister Juan David Correa told Bloomberg: "The president has told us to pick up the pace." Hardly surprising, as the ship is believed to have been carrying 200 tons of treasure, reportedly worth up to $20 billion (in today's money), when it went down on 8 June 1708.
It has apparently been dubbed the “Holy Grail of shipwrecks” for the huge amounts of information it could offer about the early 1700s. But, let's face it, billions of dollars of treasure surely adds to the allure. Previous research suggests the ship is loaded with gold, silver, emeralds, intact Chinese porcelain, pottery and cannons.
With all that treasure sitting 600 metres below the surface, you might have expected that the Colombians would "pick up the pace" rather faster. However, the discovery have been a bone of contention on at least three fronts. Indeed, its exact location is now a state secret due to legal and diplomatic disputes.
Spain, naturally, reckons they have a right to some of the proceeds. Bolivia's indigenous Qhara Qhara nation argues Spain was only able to obtain the treasure because it forced their people to mine on its behalf. Then there's a US research group that claims to have first discovered the wreck in 1981 and handed the coordinates to Colombia with the condition it would receive half the wealth.
So, whilst the San José galleon may finally reach the surface in the not too distant future, there's still going to be the ongoing title disputes to resolve.