For treasure, end of an odyssey

TAMPA - A half-billion-dollar treasure, found off the coast of
Portugal and brought to the Bay Area, is airborne on one final, but
still controversial, journey.

Thousands of silver and gold coins pulled from the wreck of the
Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes are now headed back to Spain after a
U.S. judge decided that's who really owns them.

Seventeen tons of coins were trucked from a Sarasota warehouse to
MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa yesterday. As a Spanish admiral looked
on, they were loaded up onto Spanish military cargo planes ahead of
their flight across the Atlantic today.

"This is not money. This is historical heritage," Spanish ambassador
Jorge Dezcallar de Mazarredo insisted as the planes prepared to
depart.

The treasure was found and recovered by Tampa-based Odyssey Marine,
but the Spanish government took to the courts, demanding its return. A
final ruling in their favor came a week ago, leaving Odyssey no choice
but to hand the treasure over.

"The United States government has supported Spain in this case all
along, against interests of Odyssey, a publicly-traded company, with
American taxpayers and American employees for political reasons, so it
really gives new meaning to the phrase, 'You can't fight City Hall,' "
Odyssey's attorney, Melinda MacConnel, told FOX 13 earlier this week.

The two Spanish C-130 cargo planes rumbled down the runway at MacDill
just after noon, headed back to their homeland.

The coins' flight back to Spain will complete a journey that started
over 200 years ago. The Mercedes was carrying gold from Peru back to
Spain when it was sunk by the British back in 1804.

It wasn't until 2007 when Odyssey announced that it had recovered
treasure from a site it code-named 'Black Swan,' but the company did
not initially identify the exact shipwreck.

Subsequent court rulings concluded the site was most likely the
Mercedes, and that the usual laws of salvage rights did not apply
because the ship was a military vessel.

Spain has said the treasure will be cleaned up and put on public
display after its return.

"These will go to museums," de Mazarredo added. "These are not going
to be melted down, not going to be exchanged for money. According to
Spanish law, it cannot be sold so it will go to museums, probably in
Spain and maybe in other places around the world too."