Black Swan: Controversial project to recover wealth from sunken ships
Nuestra Senora de la Mercedes had to wake up after a long sleep of two hundred years. When the treasure ship sank in the Atlantic with 200 sailors in October 1804, no one thought they would return to Earth. But beyond everyone's imagination, he was forced to return, just as he was once forced to drown. But the world of that day is very different today.
The world of the nineteenth century is completely unknown today due to the touch of science and technology. There is no time for Mercedes to rest in this new world. He did not have the leisure to adapt to the new environment. Mercedes, a victim of international strife, woke up to a new conflict. And the main reason for this controversial quarrel was the multi-million dollar treasure that was recovered from the chest of a hundred-year-old ship.
*Nuestra Senora de la Mercedes
In the early nineteenth century, the cargo ship Nuestra Senra de la Mercedes, or Mercedes for short, set sail from Peru for Spain, carrying the equivalent of about 18 tons of silver and gold coins, cinnamon, and quinoa. During the voyage, the ship sailed across the Atlantic to Europe after a short voyage to Uruguay. But just before entering Europe, the ship sank in front of four British warships.
Mercedes was attacked by the then occupying British after seeing a ship loaded with foreign resources. It is not a small matter for cargo ships to compete with the best navy in the world. After a while, Salil was buried by Mercedes after being hit by a bullet. At the same time, invaluable gems loaded with ships are lost in the sea water.
After this incident Spain took a direct part in the Napoleonic War on the Cape of Santa Maria. Spain woke up in the throes of war, but Mercedes fell asleep at the bottom of the Atlantic. After nearly 200 years, this Mercedes has been revived by an organization called 'Odyssey'. And at the same time, they have written their name in the list of the most valuable resources in the history of the world.
*The Black Swan Project
The Black Swan Project is a project run by Odyssey Marine Exploration, a Florida-based marine research firm. Through this project, Odyssey recovered the equivalent of about 500 million worth of assets from a shipwreck in the Atlantic, which is considered to be the most valuable rescue operation ever conducted at sea.The recovered items included gold, silver jewelery, coins, artefacts, sculptures and other valuables. ODC spent about ৬ 2.7 million to complete the entire project. After the rescue operation was over, they started taking them back to the United States.
The project was unveiled to the public in May 2007, as the Odyssey filed a lawsuit in a U.S. court in April seeking legal ownership of the recovered assets. But the outside world had little knowledge of this project. Because, ODC kept all the details of their project secret from the very beginning.
The limited amount of information that was released was also unclear. Due to a lack of information, it was initially thought that the shipwreck was probably a 17th-century Merchant Royal ship. But further investigation revealed that it was a Mercedes belonging to the Spanish Empire.