http://www.iol.co.za/scitech/science/discovery/battle-for-spanish-treasure-reaches-climax-1.1268472 Battle for Spanish treasure reaches climax April 2 2012 at 10:09am By Roland Lloyd Parry Comment on this story iol scitech april 2 spain treasure AP File photo: Spain's education, culture and sports minister, Jose Ignacio Wert, second left, speaks during a press conference after Spain's recovered the nearly 600,000 silver and gold coins of a shipwreck, in Madrid. Madrid - A court battle over treasure from an old Spanish shipwreck has reached Gibraltar, where descendants of the sunken cargo's owners are fighting to win back part of the booty from Spain. The British-administered territory has been drawn into a tangled squabble between Spain, US treasure hunters and the Latin American descendants, in a case harking back to the days of the Spanish empire. Mathilde Daireaux Kinsky, an Argentinian who lives in Colombia, says part of the cargo of the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, sunk by the British in a sea battle in 1804, belonged to her ancestor Diego de Alvear y Ponce de Leon.
One of the reasons why illegal treasure hunting vessels are becoming more prevalent, europe or us would n't dare try to impound a vessel flying Chinese or Indian flag and these vessels will scoop up whatever they find and send them down to be melted. So you can't even try recovering them thru legal means.
