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-Short Attention Span Theater- | ||
Spain seizes U.S. treasure ship at gunpoint | ||
2007-10-17 | ||
A Spanish warship intercepted a U.S. treasure-hunting vessel that it suspects took gold and silver worth an estimated $500 million from a sunken Spanish galleon, the U.S. crew said on Tuesday. The Spanish Navy corvette blocked the Odyssey Explorer after it left the British territory of Gibraltar and threatened to open fire when the captain refused to let police board. Police later arrested the boat's American captain, Sterling Vorus, a company official said. The warship had escorted the boat, which belongs to U.S. company Odyssey Marine Exploration, to the Spanish port of Algeciras so police could carry out a search. "They threatened that we must obey or they would use deadly force," Ali Nessar, a company representative on the boat, told Reuters by phone. "We were forced at gunpoint to come to Algeciras."
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Posted by:Fred |
#11 Spain has budget problems. They need the money. Just business, ya know......nothing personal. |
Posted by: Alaska Paul 2007-10-17 22:24 |
#10 Why is that if it is "theirs" these countries, insurance companies and others don't develop the technology and the means to recover "their" property. If it sank yesterday I could understand but if it has been on the bottom for centuries then methinks it is abbandoned |
Posted by: Cheaderhead 2007-10-17 18:51 |
#9 Maybe the U.S. Navy could spare a carrier group next time Odyssey Marine Exploration goes out to that secret spot in the Atlantic. The Spanish are getting to be a bother. It would make my heart feel all warm and fuzzy if they got stopped by one of them there new Goerge Bush class Supercarriers next time they tried to pull a stunt on an American company. |
Posted by: Mike N. 2007-10-17 13:17 |
#8 I read at another site that she is a Bahamas flagged vessel. |
Posted by: Cowboy is a compliment 2007-10-17 12:56 |
#7 Maybe some South American Indian groups should put a claim in on it too, since it was dug out of the ground using them as slave labor. |
Posted by: bigjim-ky 2007-10-17 11:35 |
#6 I seem to recall the US went to war several times in her history when US ships were seized. Spain got any good properties worth seizing? How about Ibiza? Besides I'm waiting for the Peruvians to seize the Spanish navy as down payment for the stolen treasure. |
Posted by: ed 2007-10-17 11:10 |
#5 Is this another one of Captain Pretty Boy's treasure ships? |
Posted by: tu3031 2007-10-17 10:57 |
#4 Spain remains the rightful owner of the booty Hey, that's our stuff! We stole it fair and square. |
Posted by: SteveS 2007-10-17 10:33 |
#3 IIRC, the admiralty law precedent from the Central America affair is that the cargo still technically belongs to whoever it belonged to (in that instance, the cargo insurer), but the salvager gets a cut of the goodies for having gone to the trouble of retrieving it (in the case of the Central America, 90%!). |
Posted by: Mike 2007-10-17 09:05 |
#2 ...might have come from Spanish waters or from a Spanish galleon in international waters. In both cases Spain remains the rightful owner of the booty, the government says. Yeah? And why not the Mexicans?, or Peru? - which is where they stole it from before it was put on the galleons.. |
Posted by: Vortigern Uloluper6291 2007-10-17 02:09 |
#1 Captain jack Sparrow + good pirate ship THE BLACK PEARL [late nite video last nite]??? |
Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-10-17 01:08 |