this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2025
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Mildly Interesting

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 day ago (2 children)

So why hasn't someone salvaged the gold coins yet? Seems odd, and the article offers no answer.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

Colombia has declared it an important cultural heritage site; a limited archeological survey is underway while techniques are developed to allow for the excavation and preservation of the site. (Edit: the first artefacts were recovered a few days ago!). There's also lots (30+ years) of lawsuits and drama that is too tedious to summarize but everyone sucks (although imo its good that the Colombian government seems to have emerged victorious over SSA, after umpteen years of them being just total dicks to each other. Go check out the wikipedia page, it's pretty fun.)

As to why it hasn't been looted, the location has been kept a secret but we can guess it's down -deep- deep, by the type of UUV (AUV?) used in the discovery. This means that anyone who knows where it is still has to have the resources to actually go down and loot it, and ultra-deep equipment like that is pretty hard to come by.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

I decidedly don't "loot", I "acquire". Usually by having have my ambassador nab things while nobody's looking. Much more respectable, I'm sure we all agree.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 22 hours ago

Well, if this is a consular ship, where's the ambassador??

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

Yes, your Highness. Will you be needing any further artifacts aquired for safe keeping and preservation?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

“Legitimate Salvage”

[–] [email protected] 9 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Can u tell me where I can find some treasures closer to the surface:) ty

[–] [email protected] 12 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Recommend your local library! Treasure abounds there!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Nah I want old antiques and gold

[–] [email protected] 4 points 16 hours ago

Well we have vintage books and comedy gold....

[–] [email protected] 5 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

It says it was located 600m down in 2015. That's not too bad, military subs have a max depth of like 400m, but deep sea submersibles can get to like 11km. An remote vehicle would be much cheaper at this depth, and wealthier financiers could easy afford salvage expeditions.

But where it was located is not public information. That limits it's salvaging opportunity immensely. I would also suspect that Columbia has spent some effort securing the salvage, if they can't afford to retrieve it.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 23 hours ago

Getting to that depth with a submersible is one thing, but being able to enter, navigate inside, grab stuff, and bring them out is another.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

Oh my apologies, I did not intend to imply it's impossible to get down there, just that the resources needed to recover the treasure aren't ones that can be surreptitiously obtained. There just aren't all that many ROVs in the world capable of this work, so while the act of getting down there and looting it isn't difficult, getting away with it after the fact is the challenging part.

(also the depth claim is... well there's a few reasons to be skeptical of it. This whole saga is already rife with accusations of coverups and intentional deception, and both parties involved are incredibly motivated to lie about it for their own gain. It's good to take anything either side announces with a big ol' skepticism pill...)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

Thank you for the insight.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

It's 600m below the surface. Humans can only dive to 200m max, so you need submersibles and a huge salvage operation to gather everything.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 21 hours ago

Sounds like that would cost <17billion though?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 23 hours ago

Gold dubloons! 800 pieces of eight!!