San Jose shipwreck to dubbed ‘the Holy Grail’ to be exhumed off Colombia with $20 billion sunken treasure

• Colombia declares the wreck will be raised before President Gustavo Petro’s term of office ends in 2026
• Around 200 tons of gold, silver and emeralds are thought to be on board the legendary Spanish flagship which sunk during a skirmish with the British in 1708
• But Colombia faces competing claims from Spain, Bolivia, and a US company which claims it found it first  

The ‘Holy Grail of shipwrecks’ containing up to 200 tons of gold, silver and emeralds could be floating on the Caribbean within months after Colombia declared a national mission to recover the treasure.

The Spanish galleon San Jose sank off the Colombian port of Cartagena after its powder magazines detonated during a skirmish with the British in 1708.

On board were treasures worth up to $20 billion in today’s money along with 600 sailors, all but 11 of whom went down with the ship.

In 2015, the Colombian government announced that a team of navy divers had discovered the legendary ship lying in nearly 3,100 feet of water. Last year, another team brought back jaw-dropping images of its perfectly preserved cargo.

Now, the Colombian government has said it will be raised before President Gustavo Petro ends his term of office in 2026.

The San Jose galleon was owned by the Spanish crown when it was sunk by the British Navy near Cartagena in 1708, and only 11 of its 600-strong crew survived

The San Jose was a 62-gun galleon that went down on June 8, 1708, with 600 people on board

Gold coins were also picked up on the video released by the Colombian government

‘This is one of the priorities for the Petro administration,’ Culture minister Juan David Correa told Bloomberg.

‘The president has told us to pick up the pace.’

The 62-gun galleon was sailing from Portobelo in Panama at the head of a treasure fleet of 14 merchant vessels and three Spanish warships when it encountered the British squadron near Barú.

Spain and Britain were fighting the War of the Spanish Succession at the time and the Royal Navy was approaching dominance on the high seas when it sent the San Jose to the bottom.

Images recovered last year show a part of the bow clearly seen covered in algae and shellfish, as well as the remains of the frame of the hull.

The images offer the best-yet view of the treasure that was aboard the San Jose – including gold ingots and coins, muddy cannons made in Seville in 1655 and an intact Chinese dinner service.

Porcelain crockery, pottery and glass bottles can also be seen.

The equipment used for searching of the remains of the galleon San Jose submerged almost 3,100 feet under the Colombian Caribbean Sea. It was operated by naval officials

A remotely operated vehicle reached a depth of almost 3,100 fee allowing new videos of the wreckage. Operators found the found it untouched by ‘human intervention’

An intact Chinese dinner set and other crockery were amongst the ship’s treasures

The Colombian army has revealed images of the wreck of the San Jose galleon, one of the largest of the Spanish Navy, sunk 300 years ago with its treasure off the Caribbean coast

The images offer the best-yet view of the treasure that was aboard the San Jose – including Porcelain crockery, pottery and glass bottles

Recovering the ship and its bounty will be a challenge due to its depth underwater

The wreck was discovered in 2015 by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution but ownership is disputed by Spain, Colombia and Bolivia’s indigenous Qhara Qhara nation who say the Spanish forced the community’s people to mine the precious metals, so the treasures should belong to them.

Colombia also faces a $10 billion claim from US company Glocca Morra which claims to have discovered the wreck in 1981 and handed its co-ordinates to the Colombian government on the promise of half the cargo’s value.

Colombia claims a search of the co-ordinates produced nothing but the company — now called Sea Search Armada — believes the country found the wreck in the same debris field it had discovered 34 years earlier.

WHAT WAS THE SAN JOSE GALLEON AND WHY DID IT SINK? 

The San Jose was a 62-gun, three-masted galleon that went down on June 8, 1708, with 600 people on board

It was one of many Spanish galleons that made trips between Europe and the Americas between the 16th and 18th Century

When it sank, the San Jose was transporting plundered gold, silver, emeralds and other precious stones and metals from the Americans back to Spain

This wealth was helping finance Spain’s war of succession against Britain

The ship gained a reputation as the ‘holy grail’ of shipwrecks and was carrying one of the most valuable hauls of treasure ever lost at sea – worth around £12.6 billion ($17 billion)

It was found submerged off the coast of Baru in what is now Colombia, near the Rosario Islands by a team of international experts, the Colombian Navy and the country’s archaeology institute

Why did it sink?

The San Jose galleon was sailing from Portobelo, Panama as the flagship of a treasure fleet of 14 merchant vessels and three Spanish warships when it encountered a British squadron 

The San Jose was tracked down 16 miles (26km) off Cartagena, near Barú, by English Commodore Charles Wager from the Royal Navy on 8 June 1708

A fight ensued, known as ‘Wager’s Action’

Sources say that Wager initially planned to take control of the Spanish ship’s crew and cargo

However, the powder magazines on San Jose detonated, destroying the treasure-laden ship before it could be captured

Most of the 600 souls aboard perished when the vessel sank

The British prevented the Spanish fleet from transporting the gold and silver to Europe in order to fund further war efforts but the loot would have been vast if they had managed to capture the ship

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