WRECK AT CENTRE OF STORM

The Culture Ministry has asked the Guardia Civil to investigate the record haul of half a million silver and gold coins from a 17th century shipwreck discovered "somewhere in the Atlantic", most probably off the coast of Cornwall. Odyssey Marine Exploration, which found the wreck, said the coins were worth an estimated 370 million euros, but has refused to pinpoint its exact location. It is this secrecy which makes the Spanish government suspect it could be the wreck of HMS Sussex which sank during a storm off Gibraltar in 1694. It was carrying nine tons of gold at the time. Odyssey was planning to search for the Sussex after coming to an agreement with the British government but suspended the project early last year after Spain complained. The Sussex went down in international waters and, being a British ship, Spain has no claim to it. But the Spanish government insisted it had sank in Spanish waters in an area where the seabed is strewn with ancient wrecks. The Spanish claimed Odyssey was using as decoy wreck to hide the fact that it was sneaking the real wreck out of Spain's jurisdiction. The Atlantic wreck was discovered last year in an operation codenamed Black Swan. The artefacts on it, including more than 17 tonnes of silver coins plus a few hundred gold coins, were shipped to the US where they are being examined by experts at an undisclosed location. An Odyssey spokesman said: "The gold coins are almost all dazzling mint state specimens." He said the company had kept the location secret because of security and legal reasons. He predicted the wreck would become one of the "most publicised in history". He said the site was of huge historical importance because of the insight it would offer into seafaring and the social life of the period when the ship sank: "Our research suggests that there were a number of colonial period shipwrecks that were lost in the area where this site is located, so we are being very cautious about speculating as to the possible identity of the shipwreck." US coin expert Dr Lane Brunner said there was evidence that the wreck was that of an English ship called the Merchant Royal which sank off the Scilly Islands, laden with bullion from Mexico, in 1641. If it can be confirmed that the wreck was that of a Spanish ship, a Culture ministry spokesman said Odyssey Marine International would be guilty of pillaging.