The Shipwreck Treasure Worth $20 Billion

Gold for centuries has captured the human imagination, of course, during the Great Age of Exploration, mountains were discovered, explored and plundered and the only way to return it to the motherland was by ship for hundreds of years, countless ships disappeared. and they were destroyed. Carrying tons of

treasure

, some have been found leading to lengthy court battles as different parties come forward with their claims, but others are yet to be discovered at the bottom of the ocean waiting for some lucky group to find them and make a fortune, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your friend Mike Brady from Ocean liner designs and here are four of the most valuable

shipwreck

s in the history of the city of Cairo.

Now, when people think of sunken

treasure

and lost fortunes, they probably think of the Golden Age of sails and pirate ships, but the truth is that a large number of modern

shipwreck

s and steamships have disappeared carrying a fortune in gold. and silver and one of them was the SS City of Cairo the ship was built during the First World War a passenger ship of modest size for the line of elements around 450 feet or With 137 M in length and 8,000 gross register tons, She had an uneventful career until 1929, when the ship collided and sank a tugboat with her propeller, but unfortunately for the beautiful ship City of Cairo things would only get worse during World War II as requisitioned as the supply ship was assigned the task. to transport cargo to Britain through German submarine-infested waters in October 1942.

The ship left Bombay via South Africa and had 101 passengers on board, including 28 women and 19 children, along with 10 gunners to man the ship's modest defenses. . Below deck, although the ship was loaded with 7,000 tons of general cargo such as iron, timber and cotton, but stored deep in the hull were also 2,000 boxes of silver coins, we will return to them later. The ship sailed in a zigzag pattern to avoid the enemy, but unfortunately, her old engines were running inefficiently and thick smoke billowed from her funnel, making the ship visible for miles away at 9:36 p.m. On November 6, 1942, the ship's luck ran out, a single torpedo crashed into the hole and water entered.

The ship's captain ordered them to abandon ship and the lifeboats were lowered noticeably. Only six people were lost in the sinking and all the women and children were rescued. Unfortunately, the ship's wireless operator remained at his station to transmit a distress signal, but a second torpedo detonated and killed him. The ship sank to the bottom of the sea, leaving some wreckage and the lifeboats floating on the surface which then emerged from The ocean roared the conning tower of a German submarine the u68 commanded by K. Friedr Merton stopped next to the boats lifeboat and the German captain emerged.

He chatted with the survivors in the lifeboats, asking them the name of the ship, the cargo and the destination. He gave the survivors the direction to him. The nearest land, Saint Helena, about 500M or 800km away, he said good night and sorry for sinking, you turned around and went back down to your command tower. U68 sailed and Merton thought the survivors were doomed for the next 3 weeks the lifeboats struggled. The elements on an epic open-top voyage to St. Helena, dozens of survivors of the sinking died in the lifeboats from exposure, but amazingly all the ships were rescued after having lost contact with each other for over a month and one even traveled about 2,000 miles. 3,200 km to Brazil of 302 people on board, only 195 survived.

The city of Cairo was somewhat forgotten until about 2011, when an expedition located the ship's Twisted Hulk at a depth of 177,000 feet, more than 5 km deep as at the bottom of the ocean. Encased within the hull were those 2,000 boxes of silver coins, a total of 100 tonnes, valued today at around £35 million or $50 million. It was a fortune too sweet to pass up despite the challenges presented by the great depth of the Rec. A salvage operation. was organized this was the deepest sea salvage exercise ever attempted in 2013 most of the silver had been washed up 5km from the ocean floor to see daylight again for the first time in seven decades the end of the story It is a bit disappointing, although the silver Rupees were recovered and then hastily shipped back to the UK where they were melted down and sold with the proceeds divided between the British Treasury and the Salvage team.

Still, it was a great achievement, the deepest recovery of a ship's treasure ever successfully completed. The ship was a carak type sailing freighter and was sunk in a bitter battle off the Azores. Now what she carried has tempted treasure hunters around the world for decades, but she remains one of the most attractive unfound forgotten shipwrecks in history. Cino Shagas was built. In the 16th century she made her maiden voyage in 1593, but it was discovered that she was overloaded and generally in poor condition. Crammed aboard for a final voyage were around 1,400 people, including 270 slaves. She had been sent on a special mission.

A secret cargo was loaded on board. That she needed urgent delivery to King Philip II of Spain and Portugal, CCO Shaga set out, but global events would make the ship a target of a bloodthirsty enemy. The English Royal Navy was hunting Spanish and Portuguese ships, as this was the height of the Anglo-Spanish War. A year earlier, the Portuguese Carrick Madre deas had been captured in an engagement and the British victors were shocked to discover mountains of jewels, pearls and gold stored beneath, in enormous treasure chests, this treasure believed to be

worth

as much as half the totally english. treasure at the time and perhaps the second largest treasure in history, the British Earl of Cumberland wanted it in action and privately financed the assembly of a small fleet to go capture his own Portuguese and Spanish treasure ships sailing and in June 1594 a huge Portuguese ship was seen on the horizon, it was the Cino shagas.

The Portuguese and British ships approached each other and prepared for battle. At noon they exchanged volleys and musket fire. The fighting lasted all day, the British tried to board, but the Portuguese. Fighting desperately against them, a boarding party attacked the defenseless stern of the ship and it was all over, one witness recalled that the sea was purple with blood dripping from the scuppers and the decks were crammed with dead and fire was burning in some parts of The ships and the air were so full of smoke that not only could we sometimes not see each other but we could not recognize each other, it had been a fierce fight until the end, but the British finally had control of the ship and began systematically executing anyone who surrendered. or fighting.

The Portuguese only saved the women and children, but then the smoke started to get thicker, the ship was burning out of control and had to be abandoned, the British ships were still tied up next to the SOS shagas and worked desperately to free them and then, just after dawn, the fire reached the ship's magazine and destroyed it. The explosion was enormous. Hundreds of people died, including 35 Englishmen who were still on board. In the end only 16 of those on board the Cino Shagas had survived The Portuguese crew rescued from the ocean told the English cap like a savage According to the story, they carried a fortune: 22 treasure chests with diamonds, rubies and pearls and more than 2 million silver coins that would value the ship's cargo today between 15 and 20

billion

.

The Sinker shagos had been on a special mission to transport the fortune to the king. and if it had been successful, the captain would have been named Vic Roy del Indio, the story has become legend, but the exact location of the ship's wreck has been lost because time estimates place it at a depth of approximately one mile or to fish 2 km deep. It has attracted treasure hunters and expeditions for years, in part because of the depth and the fact that the wreck was completely destroyed and the around $20

billion

in treasure that remains to be found on the SS Central America now that this next ship has earned the nickname gold ship for good reason because it was lost at the height of the California gold rush its name was SS Central America Central America it was a 280 ton or 85 M long rowing ship that operated between Panama and the east coast of the USA in the 1850s after just 5 years of service the ship left for New York City loaded with a fortune in gold nine tons of all of it explored during the gold rush from California was intended to be a rudimentary voyage but luck was not on the side of Central America on September 9, 1857 a A monstrous hurricane hit with winds of up to 105 mph or 170 kmph, the ship's sails were shredded and she worked at through mountainous waves, but the sea broke over its branches and began to fill with water, its only boiler failed, shutting down the crucial. buge pumps that were working to remove water from the ship but it slowly began to settle on the stern and sink with the sea heaving around it the crew raised a distress flag but it was a desperate situation no rescue could reach passengers and crew formed a human chain with cubes working hard to rescue their ship, but it was a losing battle.

Attempts to relight the boiler failed and all hope seemed lost, but the next morning two ships were summoned in the distance with 100 passengers, mainly women and children, loaded. in lifeboats and set out, but most stayed behind the storm did not subside and finally in Central America Stern sank first. 425 people were lost. 50 survivors were rescued from the water and more than a week after the sinking, three more were found adrift in a lifeboat. At the time, this was one of the largest losses of life at sea in American shipping. The dam with it sank in gold

worth

almost a billion dollars.

In 1988, a research effort rediscovered the lost ship and began recovering gold from the hole in total, about $150. Things worth millions were taken - a single ingot from the wreck sold for $8 million dollars alone - but then came the insurance companies, 39 of them in total, who argued that they had paid out damages in 1857 when the ship was lost and that he had the right to the recovered objective. What followed was a long legal process of lawsuit and countersuit, the discovery team received 92% of the profits, but years later, in 2005, the leader of the expedition, Tommy Thompson, was sued by his own team and investors. for possessing them, he discovered them, escaped and went into hiding in 2012, put around $4 million in offshore accounts, they located him 3 years later, in 2015, and extradited him to Ohio.

He agreed to hand over about 500 gold coins and investors received millions in compensation in 2018, about 30 years after the wreck was found, the original expedition had only excavated about 5% of the ship's remains and tons of gold remained. locked in the hull at the bottom of the ocean. Recovery efforts continue to this day, but aside from the target more fascinating things were pulled from the wreck, including a series of ancient photographs called amber types and some other deero types that showed women and children, all perfectly preserved at the bottom of the ocean for 130 years, a haunting reminder of the human lives lost when the United States Central sank San José, now this next treasure ship sank in battle, but unlike the Cino shagar, its Treasures were found, sparking a minor dispute over who is the actual owner of the wreck.

In 1708, the San José, a huge galloon, was a warship of sorts. she serving as the flagship of a treasure fleet tasked with bringing tons of gold looted from the New World to Spain. The Spanish Gallons were built specifically for this with huge holds capable of loading tons of treasure into dozens of huge cannons so they could hold. If a fight was intercepted, this was at the height of the War of the Spanish Succession and on 8 June 1708 the flagship San José and its fleet of 14 merchant ships engaged a British naval squadron. San José was one of three escort warships, but they were also the The British had thought this to be the case and in the battle that followed they focused their attacks on San José and the other two as the battle dragged on.

One of the treasure-laden Spanish escort gallons escaped into the night leaving the San José and the only other escort to avoid the four British warships, but suddenly, without warning, after only an hour of fighting, the San José was destroyed by a massive explosion when its powder magazine detonated atthe 600 crew members, only 11 survived and the ship. It was sent in pieces to the bottom of the ocean. The logbook and cargo manifest estimated that it was carrying a mountain of treasure with 7 million Spanish pesos that today are worth about 4 billion dollars. The ship quickly earned the nickname of the Holy Grail of shipwrecks and efforts were To find it and secure the target in 1981, a private expedition group found the ship about 3,000 feet or 914 m deep, but just when they thought they had become multimillionaires, the Colombian government intervened.

The wreck was located in its waters and was therefore the property of the nation of Colombia, the Expedition team offered a division 6535 with the government, but it was refused, the organization was allowed, after some deliberations, a 5% finder's fee which was then to be taxed at 4.5%. They sued the Colombian government for this. in 2007 and the Colombian Court agreed to a 50/50 split, then the government refused to act on its own Court's ruling. Investors in the original search will never see a scent recovered from the ship. In 2015, the wreck was surveyed and located by the Colombian Navy. She was identified by the barrels of her that featured prominent engravings of dolphins.

The location of the shipwreck has been classified as a state secret, but published images of the seabed showed thousands of eight-piece gold pieces scattered in the silt. In 2015, the Spanish government stepped forward and claimed ownership of the remains. of the wreck, but since the wreck is in Colombian waters, there is very little they can do. Some parts of the Colombian government claim that the treasure is part of their country's heritage and should be kept intact in a museum, while others think it should simply be ingested. By the Banco de la Nación, indigenous groups have also come forward demanding a share.

Since much of the gold had been looted from their ancestors just this month of November 2023, it was announced that San José will rise before 2026. It is still It remains to be seen what exactly the plan is for this historically important shipwreck, but hopefully the move comes to fruition. Not only is it an attempt to recover the billions in Lost Treasure, but it will also be a venture aimed at bringing the ship's incredibly preserved artifacts to the public so we can learn more about her colorful past. Honestly, this whole thing is a complete mess and though mine. decisions are still being made and decisions are being made about what should really happen, the Colombian Navy is still patrolling the wreck guarding the thousands of gold coins that fell from the bottom of the ocean waiting for someone brave enough to try and make a step up and take it ladies and gentlemen, it's your friend Mike Brady from Ocean liner designs thank you very much for watching this video.

If you enjoyed it leave a comment below don't forget to subscribe to the channel because we post new videos weekly if you want to support my work and really cool perks like behind the scenes and early access check out my patreon at the link in the description below or sign up As a YouTube member, come and join the team as always, stay safe, stay happy. See you again next time.