The billion-dollar shipwreck and the man who tried to find it – podcast

Journalist Julian Sancton on the story of the most valuable shipwreck in history and who could end up with its treasures

A few years ago, the journalist Julian Sancton came across a story about a shipwreck found off the coast of Colombia. Onboard were treasures supposedly worth $1bn – which, he thought, must’ve been a typo. But it wasn’t. “It was supposedly billions, many tons, more than 100 tons of gold and silver,” he told Michael Safi.

He wrote a piece for Vanity Fair about the extraordinary 300-year mystery of where this ship had sunk, and how it had been finally found a decade ago. But the more Julian dug into the story, the more he realised that the tale of the man who had done more than anyone to find the San José was just as tantalising.

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