Colombia says it will try to recover treasures from 'holy grail of shipwrecks' worth billions

• Colombia said it would try to recover objects from a Spanish warship that sank off its coast in 1708, the Associated Press reported.
• The San José galleon is believed to have been carrying treasures worth billions of dollars.

Colombia said it will try to recover objects from a Spanish warship that sank off the coast of port city Cartagena in 1708, the Associated Press reported on Thursday.

The shipwreck of the San José galleon — which has been called the "holy grail of shipwrecks" — is believed to be carrying billions of dollars worth of items, including more than 7 million pesos, 116 steel chests full of emeralds, and 30 million gold coins. It sank in a battle against British ships.

Juan David Correa, Colombia's culture minister, said the country will try to make its first recovery from the ship in April or May next year, subject to ocean conditions, the AP reported.

Colombia's move to recover objects from the shipwreck — located in 2015 — would be controversial.

In 2018, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization urged Colombia not to exploit the shipwreck commercially.

A US salvage company is also suing Colombia for half of San José's treasures. The ship's cargo is worth anywhere from $4 billion to $20 billion, Bloomberg reported last month, citing court cases in recent decades.

Correa, Colombia's culture minister, pledged that the recovery of objects from the San José's would be a scientific expedition, per AP.

"This is an archaeological wreck, not a treasure," Correa said, according to the news agency. "This is an opportunity for us to become a country at the forefront of underwater archaeological research."