Britain abandoned efforts to recover an estimated £5.5 billion in treasure from a Royal Navy shipwreck near Gibraltar due to fears of upsetting Spain, according to leaked diplomatic cables from the early 2000s. Ministers reportedly scrapped plans to salvage the warship, believed to be HMS Sussex, despite the wreck being under British ownership.
HMS Sussex, a Royal Navy flagship, sank in a storm in 1694 off Gibraltar while carrying an estimated 10 tons of gold. Records suggest the wreck lies in international waters east of Gibraltar, an area Britain could claim under international maritime law. In 2001, the U.S. deep-sea exploration company Odyssey Marine Exploration announced it was almost certain it had found the ship after a three-year search.
The UK government entered into an agreement with Odyssey in September 2002, outlining the recovery of the wreck and a split of the treasure's sale proceeds. However, the announcement led to protests and diplomatic tension with Spain, which asserted ownership of the ship, claiming it was within Spanish-claimed waters, despite a lack of evidence.
Leaked U.S. diplomatic cables revealed that British officials viewed the dispute as an "unnecessary threat" to British-Spanish relations. Dame Denise Holt, then deputy head of mission at the British embassy in Madrid, stated in documents released by WikiLeaks that officials intended to "terminate" the contract with Odyssey. By June 2007, she noted that the controversy had led the British embassy to distance itself from Odyssey and was also impacting "Gibraltar issues."
Spain's culture minister, Carmen Calvo, was quoted in a November 2005 cable as saying Odyssey would pursue the wreck "over her dead body." The correspondence referred to the situation as a "six year saga."
The wreck was located in 1998 at a depth of 821 meters (2,694 feet) in the Mediterranean Sea and identified using underwater robots. The recovery mission reportedly cost Odyssey millions of dollars, and its team faced what they described as aggressive actions from Spanish patrol boats. Neil Cunningham Dobson, a marine archaeologist involved in the project, told the Daily Mail that the Guardia Civil were hostile, forcing the team to abandon the site with archaeological investigations incomplete.
Under the initial agreement, Odyssey was set to receive 80 percent of the first $45 million from coin sales, with proceeds up to $500 million split equally between the UK and Odyssey. Any further proceeds would be divided 60-40 in favor of the UK. The project reportedly halted as the contract ran its course, with Spain allegedly deploying coastal patrols to disrupt the operation.
According to historical accounts, HMS Sussex was on a covert mission carrying gold and silver coins to the Duke of Savoy to fund his war against Louis XIV during the Nine Years' War against France. It served as the flagship for Admiral Sir Francis Wheeler's fleet. It is believed that only two of the 550 crew members survived the sinking. The admiral's body was found washed ashore on a Spanish beach two days later. The Ministry of Defence and Odyssey Marine Exploration have been contacted for comment.