Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. (NasdaqCM: OMEX) a pioneer in the field of deep ocean exploration, was named in several U.S. State Department cables obtained by WikiLeaks and furnished to the media worldwide. Some of the released cables suggest that the State Department offered special assistance in the “Black Swan” case to Spanish officials in exchange for assistance in acquiring a French painting confiscated by the Nazis during World War II and now controlled by Spain.

The cables indicate that the U.S. Government also provided confidential documentation on Odyssey to Spain.

Other State Department cables contradict Spain’s claims and support Odyssey’s previously stated version of events relating to the company’s activities in Spain, including the HMS Sussex project and the boarding of Odyssey’s vessels.

“While we are obviously concerned about these implications regarding the ‘Black Swan’ case, we are attempting to obtain additional information before taking any specific actions. I have personally sent a letter to the Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, requesting additional information and a review of the position taken by the U.S. in the ‘Black Swan’ legal case,” stated Greg Stemm, Odyssey CEO. “The possibility that someone in the U.S. Government came up with this perfidious offer to sacrifice Odyssey, its thousands of shareholders, and the many jobs created by the company in exchange for the return of one painting to one individual is hard to believe. The WikiLeaks cables clearly show that we have worked cooperatively and transparently with both Spain and the State Department for many years, in spite of claims to the contrary. That fact makes the revelations all the more disappointing. The cables also make us wonder what other agreements may have taken place between U.S. Government officials and Spain regarding the amicus brief filed in support of Spain’s position in the ‘Black Swan’ case.”

“We’ve wondered why the United States changed its long standing position on sovereign immunity, which prior to this case was consistent with U.S. law, international law and U.S. naval regulations that in order for a foreign country’s ships and cargo to be immune from the jurisdiction of the U.S. courts they must be engaged in military, non-commercial activities,” stated Melinda MacConnel, Odyssey Vice President and General Counsel. “These released cables do call into question the motivation behind the amicus brief filed by the Executive Branch supporting Spain in the ‘Black Swan’ case.”

Additional cables released support Odyssey’s statements that, contrary to allegations of certain Spanish officials, the company always cooperated with the Spanish Government and that permits from the Spanish government were granted for work on the HMS Sussex project. The cables also demonstrate the obstructionist activities carried out by certain Spanish officials who had personal reasons for trying to prevent Odyssey from working on the Sussex. These obstructions took place even though Odyssey has an exclusive contract for the archaeological excavation of this UK sovereign immune warship (which was on a strictly military mission when it sank in 1694 off the coast of Gibraltar). Odyssey filed an affidavit in 2007 with a chronology of Odyssey’s interactions with the Spanish Government since 1998. It can be accessed at http://shipwreck.net/pdf/ExhibitE.pdf. The document contains entries that are corroborated by information in the State Department cables, which directly contradict claims by some Spanish officials and the Spanish media.

About the “Black Swan”

In May 2007, Odyssey announced the discovery of the “Black Swan,” a Colonial-period site located in the Atlantic Ocean which yielded over 500,000 silver coins weighing more than 17 tons, hundreds of gold coins, worked gold, and other artifacts. Odyssey completed an extensive pre-disturbance survey of the “Black Swan” site, which included recording over 14,000 digital still images used to create a photomosaic of the site.

The coins and artifacts were brought into the United States with a valid export license and imported legally pursuant to U.S. law. Odyssey brought the artifacts under the jurisdiction of the U.S. District Court by filing an Admiralty arrest action. This procedure allows any legitimate claimant with an interest in the property to make a claim.

The Kingdom of Spain filed a claim to the treasure alleging that the coins originated from the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, a Spanish naval vessel which sunk in 1804. Spain claimed that it owned all of the coins and that the treasure was immune from the jurisdiction of the U.S. Court under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). Although it has not been conclusively proven the recovered cargo came from the Mercedes, Odyssey presented clear evidence to the trial court (including the ship’s manifest) that shows the primary purpose of the Mercedes’ last voyage was commercial in nature and the vast majority of coins on board were owned by private merchants, not by Spain. The United States filed an amicus brief in the case changing its previous position and supporting Spain in the “Black Swan” case by setting forth a re-interpretation of the language in the Sunken Military Craft Act (SMCA) to allow government owned vessels on commercial missions to enjoy sovereign immunity.

A number of individual private descendants (whose ancestors were transporting goods on the Mercedes) as well as the country of Peru have filed claims in the case.

Without conducting a hearing, the district court sided with Spain and ruled that the treasure should all be turned over to Spain. The case is currently on appeal at the Eleventh Circuit.

For more information on the “Black Swan,” visit www.shipwreck.net/blackswan.php.

Odyssey’s significant legal filings in the “Black Swan” case can be viewed at http://www.shipwreck.net/blackswanlegal.php.

Related posts:

1. Odyssey Marine Exploration Files Appellate Brief in “Black Swan” Case
2. Odyssey Marine Exploration Challenges Claims by Spain in Its “Black Swan” Appellate Reply
3. Odyssey Marine Exploration Files Admiralty Arrests on Two Shipwreck Sites

The 19th-century shipwreck at the heart of the dispute with Odyssey Marine Exploration is the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes — a Spanish warship sunk by the British navy southwest of Portugal in 1804 with more than 200 people on board.

The Legal Proceedings:

Odyssey announced in May 2007 it had discovered the wreck in the Atlantic and raised 500,000 silver coins and other artifacts worth an estimated US$500 million (€324 million). The coins and artifacts were brought into the United States with a valid export license and imported legally pursuant to U.S. law. Odyssey brought the artifacts under the jurisdiction of the U.S. District Court by filing an Admiralty arrest action. This procedure allows any legitimate claimant with an interest in the property to make a claim.

Spain went to the U.S. federal court claiming ownership of the treasure and the case is currently set for Oral Arguments tentatively scheduled to take place during the week of February 28, 2011 at the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

Additional appeals have been filed by groups who have presented documentation indicating that if Spain is correct, and the recovered cargo originated from the Mercedes, they are descendants of the owners of Mercedes’ cargo and have legitimate property rights. Those claimants have recognized Odyssey’s archaeological recovery efforts and have acknowledged Odyssey’s right to a salvage award.

Back To the WikiLeaks Disclosure:

Among the thousands of documents released by WikiLeaks are several U.S. diplomatic cables describing how U.S. ambassadors were helping Spain in their cause — partly to help broker a deal to bring a famous painting in Spain to a U.S. citizen who claimed it was looted by the Nazis in World War II.

Specifically the U.S. offered to provide confidential customs documents prepared by Odyssey that Spain in turn planned to use in court to fight Odyssey, presumably to discredit claims that the treasure was imported legally to the US.

Odyssey officials are not pleased at the revelation:

“The cables seem to indicate that someone in the U.S. State Department has literally offered to sacrifice Odyssey and its thousands of shareholders along with the many jobs created by the company in exchange for the return of one painting to one U.S. Citizen,” the company said in a statement “It is hard to believe that this really happened. It sounds like something out of a Hollywood script.”

According to an MSNBC Article:

A diplomatic cable a year later describes how the U.S. Ambassador to Spain, Eduardo Aguirre, suggested a deal.

He met with Spanish Minister of Culture Cesar Antonio Molina on June 30, 2008, who told the U.S. Ambassador that they should meet over the issue of a claim by an American citizen, Claude Cassirer, to recover a painting by Camille Pissarro. Cassirer claims the Nazis in 1939 forced his grandmother to sell them the painting and it passed through several hands before ending up in a Spanish museum.

“The [U.S.] ambassador noted also that while the Odyssey and Cassirer claim were on separate legal tracks,” the cable states, “it was in both governments’ interest to avail themselves of whatever margin for manouevre they had, consistent with their legal obligations, to resolve both matters in a way that favoured the bilateral relationship.”

The Spanish official replied, the cable says, that there were many steps required before any movement on the painting, but that he had recently flown to Washington, in part, to meet with lawyers that Spain retained in the Odyssey case. He expressed “indignation” after a CNN interview where Odyssey CEO Greg Stemm aimed to keep the treasure and return only items of archeological value.

London’s Guardian newspaper first reported the cables, as part of its ongoing digestion of thousands of documents released by WikiLeaks. The U.S. government has condemned the release and called for prosecution of WikiLeaks founders.

The Spanish were “grateful” after Department of Homeland Security staff in the U.S. embassy in Madrid handed the Spanish customs import documents that Odyssey had filed when bringing the treasure to Tampa.

“The information was confidential,” the U.S. cable stated, “and to be used only for law enforcement purposes.” The Spanish replied that they were “interested in obtaining the Odyssey customs information to provide to lawyers representing the [Government of Spain] in the Tampa Admiralty Court.”

Related posts:

1. Spain claims all treasure from The Black Swan
2. Spain in U.S. Court Today over Black Swan Treasure
3. Odyssey Marine Exploration Challenges Claims by Spain in Its “Black Swan” Appellate Reply

Superior Gold Group, which sold gold coins and bullion and other precious metals, is alledged to have taken  payments from customers but never delivered the gold ordered, charged prices much higher than fair market value and misled customers into buying expensive specialty coins according to the lawsuit, filed Friday.

In their lawsuit, the agencies said Superior Gold took advantage of investors who flocked to gold as the price of the precious metal rose and the value of many other investments fell in recent years.

“By fostering fear and confusion among its customers, Superior has induced them to pay far above market prices for various gold products,” the complaint said.

In a report by The LA Times, they recounted one victims story…”

Steven Siry, 61, of Los Angeles is one customer who believes he was ripped off. Siry said he invested $20,000 in a “gold IRA” through Superior Gold. But company representatives sold him collector’s coins at an inflated rate rather than offering him bullion, and it took more than a year and numerous phone calls before the coins were delivered to the trust company that was to hold them, he said.

Siry estimates the actual value of the gold, when it finally arrived, as a little more than half of what he paid for it.

“It was a big mess, it was uncomfortable, and I felt kind of stupid, quite frankly, because I didn’t do enough shopping before I used them,” he said.

In another complaint the victim stated: “Nearly two years ago (Mar. ‘09), I purchased approx. $47, 000 worth of gold and silver coins (my entire life savings). I have yet to recieve (sic) a single coin! I have been calling for years and they refuse to give me my money back or to buy my coins,”

“Receiver Dean Pucci of the law firm Jones & Mayer took control of Superior Gold’s two locations in Woodland Hills and Santa Monica, Monday afternoon,” Santa Monica officials said. “Pucci was ordered by the court to secure the assets of the business and take over its operation.”

The court set a hearing for December 17, 2010 to decide whether the receivership and asset freeze will remain in place until the case goes to trial.

Former customers of Superior Gold Group who wish to file a complaint should go to this website:gold.smconsumer.org

Related posts:

1. PNG Offers Rewards, Security Tips After California Coin Dealer Burglaries
2. Liberty Dollar Office Raided by FBI – Gold and Silver “Coins” Seized
3. Judge Rules that Gov’t Improperly Seized 1933 St. Gaudens Gold coins

The Spanish galleon San Jose was trying to outrun a fleet of British warships off Colombia on June 8, 1708, when a mysterious explosion sent it to the bottom of the sea with gold, silver and emeralds owned by private Peruvian and European merchants, and lies about 700 feet below the water’s surface, a few miles from the historic Caribbean port of Cartagena, on the edge of the Continental Shelf.

Jack Harbeston, managing director of the Cayman Islands-registered commercial salvage company Sea Search Armada, who has taken on seven Colombian administrations during two decades in a legal fight to claim half the sunken hulk’s riches.

“If I had known it was going to take this long, I wouldn’t have gotten involved in the first place,” said Harbeston, 75, who lives in Bellevue, Wash.

The 41-page federal lawsuit outlines a long, tortuous jpurney through the Colombian courts after the Glocca Morra Co. identified six shipwreck locations, between 1980 and 1985, operating with permission of Colombia’s Direccion General Maritima.

Harbeston claims he and a group of 100 U.S. investors – among them the late actor Michael Landon and the late convicted Nixon White House adviser John Ehrlichman – invested more than $12 million since a deal was signed with Colombia in 1979 giving Sea Search exclusive rights to search for the San Jose and 50 percent of whatever they find.

Colombia tried to weasel out of the deal after Sea Search recovered materials from the ship, proving it was down there. Colombia “delayed signing the written agreement it had drafted, and eventually refused to sign the offer it had made to SSA,” the complaint states. But nonetheless Colombia refused to let it salvage the shipwreck.

All that changed in 1984, when then-Colombian President Belisario Betancur signed a decree reducing Sea Search’s share from 50 percent to a 5 percent “finder’s fee.”

Sea Search sued in Colombia, calling the Seizure Law retroactive and unconstitutional, and the Colombian Supreme Court agreed in 1994, giving Sea Search rights to 50 percent of the San Jose treasure, and the other half to Colombia, according to the complaint.

Sea Search says Colombia still refuses to let it salvage the shipwreck, and has taken a series of actions in bad faith, for decades, to prevent it from doing so. It demands $4 bill to $17 billion – the estimated value of the treasure – and damages for breach of contract and conversion, and enforcement of the foreign judgment.

The real value is impossible to calculate because the ship’s manifests have disappeared. The San Jose is known to have been part of Spain’s only royal convoy to try to bring colonial bullion home to King Philip V during the War of Spanish Succession with England from 1701 to 1714.

“Without a doubt, the San Jose is the Holy Grail of treasure shipwrecks,” said Robert Cembrola, director of the Naval War College Museum in Newport, R.I.

Related posts:

1. British Shipwreck Could Hold £2.6 Billion in Treasure
2. New Battle Looms Over Rights to the World’s Richest Shipwreck
3. Sedwick Auction To Feature Shipwreck Treasure, Gold Cobs and World Coins

The Manhattan DA’s office announced the indictment of a “rare coin broker” who allegedly convinced an elderly woman and her daughter to invest their life savings in rare gold and silver coins, and then stole $430,000 worth of the coins back from them.

The “Coin Broker/Advisor”, Stephanie Brown of Paradise Valley, Arizona, has been charged with grand larceny, fraud and forgery to name a few, and DA Cy Vance said, “The defendant preyed upon the victims’ fears of a national financial collapse and convinced them to sink their life savings into collector coins.”

According to a Wall Street Journal Article,”Over the next two and a half years, the 83-year-old mother ensnared in the alleged scheme spent $1 million — her life’s savings — and her daughter paid $80,000 to acquire about 160 coins, according to prosecutors. Brown earned $100,000 in commission on the sales.Brown began selling them coins in March of 2007, and soon convinced them to “liquidate all financial investments they held and to invest their life’s savings in gold coins.” The mother and daughter combined spent about $1.1 million on the coins, and Brown  reportedly earned commissions of about $100,000.

Brown then allegedly convinced the two to keep the coins at home, and then gained entry to their house, after which she was left alone with the coins. She is accused of destroying the documents identifying the coins and stealing 57 of their 160 coins, worth $430,000. Prosecutors have now recovered 16 of the stolen coins, which Brown had resold.

Brown is currently under investigation in connection with coin sales in California and Arizona, prosecutors said, but she has not been charged in those states. She was a former employee of ITM Trading and began her own business, GBA Gold, a/k/a GBA Investments LLC ( The Web Site has been suspended) 26546 N. Alma School Road #230 Scottsdale, AZ 85255 ( Better Business Member with an A- rating joined on 7/20/2010)

Editors Note: If you read through a number the articles written about this story, it is amazing to read certain statements and characterizations.

For example, Ms Brown was described as a “Rare Coin Expert” in one WSJ article. Funny, i thought she was just a thief and a con artist. Is she indeed a “Coin Expert” or just a person selling coins? You decide. Here is a link to a brief profile on Ms. Brown.

In another article the Daily News writer made the following comment on the Gold market; “While gold has traded at an all-time high, topping $1,400 an ounce in the past few days, collectible coins are not as safe as gold because they are gilt, not solid gold.”  Even Assistant District Attorney Adam Kaufmann gave his opinion on the coin market saying.”Gold coins are not a great hedge in these economic times” REALLY?

Finally Minyanville.com took a more political angle on the story with their headline “Gold Coin Scammer Takes Page From Glenn Beck’s Playbook” Somehow I don’t think this story has anything to do with Glen Beck, Fox News, Goldline or NY Rep Wiener. Give it a rest….

Stolen Coins Removed from London Auction

The Sofia News Agency reported that Bulgarian medieval coins which were to part of a Nov 10th auction by Classical Numismatic Group, Inc in London has been removed from the sale, including a very rare silver penny of despot Dobrotitsa, minted in Kaliakra.

In 2007, a collection of 500 medieval crosses and 2 000 medieval coins, including the said silver penny, were stolen from the home of one of the authors of the book titled “Bulgarian Antique Coins from the 9th to the 15th Century Period” , published in 1999.

After the joint operation between the Main Directorate “Criminal Police,” the Bulgarian Culture Ministry, and the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office of Cassations, the Bulgarian medieval coins have been taken off the auction site and their sale halted.

Attempted Break-In at Fort Worth Coin Club Show.

Doug Davis from the Numismatic Crime Information Center (NCIC) reports…..

“On Saturday November 6, 2010 at approximately 6:45pm two suspects attempted to break into the bourse floor after the close of the Fort Worth Coin Club show in Fort Worth, Texas. Doug Davis, Founder/President, of the Numismatic Crime Information Center and who provides security for several coin shows in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex was on scene at the time of the incident.

Banging sounds were coming from the rear door entrance to the show and Davis went to investigate. As he approached he saw a large screw driver come through the top of the door and a crowbar prying at the bottom. Davis identified himself as a police officer and instructed them to get back away from the door. The suspects dropped the tools and fled. Fort Worth police were called and a crime scene investigation was conducted. The offense remains under investigation.

“To my knowledge this is the first time an attempted burglary/robbery has occurred in the last 15 years or longer”, Davis said. “Although this may be an isolated event dealers must be alert and cautious when attending numismatic events and bourse chairmen should provide adequate security regardless of the cost”, said Davis.

Hard economic times and the rise in gold and silver prices are factors in the rise in numismatic crimes. Collectors and dealers are encouraged to take preventative measures to reduce the risk of becoming a numismatic crime victim. “

Related posts:

1. Numismatic Crime Alert
2. Coin News Daily – Recent Numismatic Headlines
3. Coin History: “Crime of 1873″ Creates Coinage Chaos