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The Spanish Civil Guard has intercepted a boat operated by a US company amid a row over treasure from a shipwreck. The guard had been ordered by a Spanish judge to seize the vessel as soon as it left the British colony of Gibraltar. Gibraltar officials and Odyssey Marine Exploration, which owns the ship, said Spain had boarded the ship illegally as it was in international waters. In May, Odyssey said it had found $500m (£253m) in coins from a 17th Century wreck somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. Madrid suspects the sunken galleon may either have been Spanish or have...

The Spanish Civil Guard has intercepted a boat operated by a US company amid a row over treasure from a shipwreck. The guard had been ordered by a Spanish judge to seize the vessel as soon as it left the British colony of Gibraltar. Gibraltar officials and Odyssey Marine Exploration, which owns the ship, said Spain had boarded the ship illegally as it was in international waters. In May, Odyssey said it had found $500m (£253m) in coins from a 17th Century wreck somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. Madrid suspects the sunken galleon may either have been Spanish or have...

MADRID, Spain (3 Apr 2007) -- In February 1694, British admiral Francis Wheeler set sail from the Bay of Gibraltar with an important mission. He was to bring a large sum of money to the Duke of Savoy in order to buy his loyalty and to ensure victory in Britain's ongoing war against France's Sun King Louis XIV. But when the HMS Sussex arrived in the Strait of Gibraltar, it was hit by a violent storm, and Wheeler struggled in vain to save it. The 50-metre warship went down with more than 500 men, 80 cannons and an estimated 10...

Hidden behind a fabulous sunken treasure recovered from a wreck in the Atlantic Ocean lays a story of secret diplomatic cables and Nazi art thieves, according to a revelation from WikiLeaks documents. Consisting of 500,000 silver coins weighing more than 17 tons, hundreds of gold coins, worked gold, and other artifacts, the so-called Black Swan treasure has been at the center of an acrimonious international legal battle ever since it was discovered in 2007 by underwater robots from Odyssey Marine Exploration, a Florida-based treasure-hunting company. It wasn't a fair confrontation, according to leaked documents released by WikiLeaks. London's Guardian newspaper,...

MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Spain has again seized an American treasure-hunting ship over a dispute with its owners over who has rights to millions of dollars worth of booty recovered from the sea, officials said. Spain seized the "Odyssey Explorer" -- owned by Odyssey Marine Exploration based Tampa, Florida -- as it sailed out of port in the British colony of Gibraltar on Tuesday. Armed Spanish government vessels were waiting for the Explorer when it reached 6.4 kilometers (4 miles) off Gibraltar's shore and entered what Spain considers its territorial waters. The vessels forced the Explorer to dock at Spain's...