The treasure, including gold coins and emeralds, is estimated to be worth between $4 billion USD and $20 billion USD. SSA argues that it located the wreck in the 1980s and provided Colombia with the coordinates. However, Colombia is denying this, citing discrepancies in the coordinates provided by SSA.

The San José galleon was sunk by the British Navy during the War of Spanish Succession. After remaining undiscovered for centuries, SSA (known as Glocca Mora at the time), partnered with Colombia in the 1980s to search for the wreck. In 1982, SSA submitted coordinates for the wreck’s location, but disagreements over the division of the treasure caused the wreck to remain untouched.

The case was brought back in 2015 when Colombia announced it had independently found the wreck. In response, SSA demanded compensation, claiming it deserved a $10 billion USD share of the treasure.

Colombia insists in defending its position. Yebrail Haddad, Director of International Defense at Colombia’s National Agency for the Legal Defense of the State (Andje), firmly rejected SSA’s claims. According to The Bogotá Post, he emphasizes that SSA did not discover the San José galleon. An investigation commissioned by Colombia from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution found that SSA’s 1982 coordinates were off by as much as 10 kilometers, bringing doubt on the validity of SSA’s role in locating the wreck.

The case is currently being heard by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, with a ruling expected by the end of 2025. Haddad stated that Colombia will not entertain a financial settlement with SSA, pointing that the treasure rightfully belongs to Colombia and that no compromise is possible.

Alongside the legal battle, Colombia has continued its efforts to preserve and study the San José galleon. In December 2024, Colombia declared the wreck site an “Area of Archaeological Protection” to ensure its preservation and limit any interference with ongoing research, as informed by the Ministry of Culture.

The project “Towards the Heart of the San José Galleon” has made significant progress, cataloging over 1,100 objects and uncovering new details about the ship’s sinking. Contrary to previous beliefs, the ship did not explode during the Battle of Barú.

Headline Photo: Image of the first expedition of 2024 to the San José Galleon. New areas of archaeological interest were identified in it (Photo: Ministerio de Cultura)

Click on the above image to play the video.

Collective Mining keeps finding gold

First, some good news. Collective Mining (TSX: CNL, OTCQX: CNLMF, FSE: GG1), which is developing a gold mine down in the Caldas region in coffee country has five drill rigs operating at its Guayabales project, part of its 40 thousand meter drill program for this year. They are getting really encouraging results. This is the same team that developed Continental Gold and sold it to Zijin mining a few years ago for over a billion dollars. We published a more detailed update in Finance Colombia if you want to go over the numbers and assay results of this most recent update. I’m long on Continental because I believe in the team led by Ari Sussman.

Collective Mining Expands its Box Target Area with New High-Grade Samples; Drilling Continues

Petro threatens the private sector with “forced investments!”

President Gustavo Petro is once again terrifying investors, this time with an announcement that he plans to force private banks to loan money to projects and borrowers of his choosing. He said, and I translate:

 “I promised that we were going to present the measures to the congress of the republic to reactivate the economy which will consist, and I say it once and for all, in projects of law that generate FORCED INVESTMENT in the private financial system of Colombia destined to small, medium and large industry of agriculture and tourism in Colombia to reactivate the country.”

This is what Petro’s opponents warned about, and at least when it comes to intent, they were right. The question now is whether Colombia’s institutionalism can withstand more of his adventures. Statements and plans like this destroy investor confidence and scare away capital, just like what is happening with Ecopetrol.

“…and I say it once and for all, in projects of law that generate FORCED INVESTMENT in the private financial system of Colombia” – President Gustavo Petro

General Motors To Close Colombia Manufacturing Operations

Speaking of scaring away capital, General Motors is closing its Colmotores car factory after almost 70 years in Colombia. Now two years ago, GM said it was going to invest 50 million dollars to upgrade the factory to produce new models! What has changed? By the way, the Minister of Labor has told GM that they have to keep the workers employed even though the factory is closing, so we will see how that works out.

Alvaro Uribe is formally charged with witness tampering & bribery

Former President Alvaro Uribe, who in recent years has seen his once stellar legacy tarnished by a litany of revelations, is now formally charged with witness tampering in a drama that goes back to 2012. See the AP article here. https://apnews.com/article/colombia-alvaro-uribe-charges-witness-tampering-bd11a922142d000db1fcac178a1a147e

See also: Declassified US State Department Cables: “Uribe Almost Certainly Had Dealings With The Paramilitaries”

Bilateral harmony between Colombia & US leads to results

In some good news Colombia hosted a US State Department delegation last month for high level talks which led to several announcements. Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo, who actually was a US Citizen for a while, has announced that Colombians can now access almost 20 thousand United States non-agricultural work visas, and more than 1,000 summer job visas. We will do a write up on this both on Finance Colombia and Empleobilingue, the only source on the web for bilingual talent.

Colombia is going to open five new consulates in Phoenix, Dallas, Denver, Charlotte and Seattle. There are already 9 thousand Colombians studying in the US on Student Visas, and there is a family unification program already in effect between the two countries which has 6,000 current authorizations by the State Department.

The mammoth UNGRD scandal that threatens Petro

There is an ongoing scandal in the Petro Administration where the government paid the equivalent of $12 million US dollars for a fleet of water tanker trucks to supply water to citizens of La Guajira, the desert region on the Atlantic Coast near the Venezuelan border. Now, no water got to the residents of La Guajira, the trucks sat idle on a Colombian military base. But the money paid to a contractor by Colombia’s UNGRD (National Unit of Disaster Risk Management) was “allegedly” used to bribe Senate President Iván Name and Andrés Calle in the house of representatives to unblock opposition to Petro’s reform bills. According to Colombia’s comptroller, the Controller General (Contraloria), each tanker truck was purchased from the dealer, Kenworth de la Montaña, in Medellín, for about 600 million pesos, but then sold to the government for $1.2 billion pesos. This way they could launder money out for political purposes.

Former Deputy Director of the UNGRD, Sneyder Pinilla “prendió el ventilador-started the fan” (Colombian saying, like “when the shit hits the fan”) and accused former director of the UNGRD, Olmedo Lopez of using the UNGRD money through this conspiracy to pay the bribes, covering it up with this tanker truck contract, and that the payments were made at the direction of Petro’s Minister of the Interior, Luís Fernando Velasco, and the Councilor for the Regions, Sandra Ortiz, who was actually the bag man, or “bag woman.”

Now Olmedo López and Sneyder Pinilla are testifying and want immunity with Colombia’s attorney general, because they say that the tanker scandal is just the tip of the iceberg in a case that for Colombia, may be larger than the Odebrecht scandal.

According to these two, a political machine was put in place inside the Petro administration that would launder 380 billion pesos, or almost $100 million US dollars of “marmalade” or UNGRD funds into the hands of legislators and bureaucrats to bribe for passage of Petro’s reforms, all of which have failed so far, and to finance last October’s local elections, where again, Petro’s party and allies lost badly. Lopez says the tanker truck scandal just got discovered but according to him there is a whole infrastructure inside Petro’s government operating with this modality to bribe legislators and fund campaigns.

Now the scary thing is that the company that sold the trucks, Impoamericana Roger SAS was sold to Elmer Celis in 2019, and right before the contract for the tankers was being finalized, Celis was assassinated. So this scandal now has deadly implications.

Sura wants out of the EPS health system

Grupo Sura, the insurance and asset management giant has told the Colombian government that it plans to withdraw from the national EPS health insurance scheme. They are supposed to be meeting with the company to negotiate what happens.

Colombia wants the gold from a Spanish Galleón, so do Bolivians

In 1708 the Spanish galleon San José was sunk by the British during the War of Spanish Succession. in the Caribbean sea off the coast of Cartagena. The shipwreck was found in 2015 in about 600 meters, or 328 fathoms, or 2,000 feet of water, and Colombia is claiming it as its own and using the military to fend off any would-be treasure hunters. Last month, Colombia announced that it was launching a research and recovery project, aiming to prioritize the historical value of the wreck. There are complications though. The ship was Spanish, so Spain would need to renounce any sovereignty over the wreck. Spain considers the ship a graveyard that should not be molested out of respect for the dead.

Down in landlocked Bolivia, the Chicha, Caranga and Killaka people have filed claims with UNESCO saying that their enslaved ancestors extracted the treasure onboard from mines in what is now Bolivia, and have a right to share in whatever wealth is in the shipwreck.

This is going to be an interesting case. There is a treaty, the 2001 Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage. Spain is a signatory, so is bound by the treaty, but Colombia never ratified or signed it, so is not bound by it.

Colombia has (finally) outlawed bullfighting

The Colombian house of representatives has outlawed bullfighting, a 500 year old tradition of bovine torture inherited from the Spanish. There are still people who defend bullfighting. The bill is in reconciliation with the senate, and then goes to President Petro, who is sure to sign it into law.

Mafia guerilla groups flourishing, expanding under Petro’s “Total Peace” fiasco

Reuters is reporting that it got access to a secret report showing that all the major criminal mafias in Colombia expanded in 2023, making a mockery of President Petro’s “Total Peace” initiative. Those criminal organizations would be the Clan del Golfo, ELN, and the two former FARC groups Estado Mayor and Segunda Marquetalia. Petro ran his campaign promising “Total Peace” but these groups, three of the four are avowed communist guerillas, and the Clan Del Golfo a descendant of paramilitaries, just keep getting bigger. When is Petro going to start?

Reuters also reported on illegal road building in the Amazon rainforest, in some cases by these same groups, that the government is supposed to be stopping. For example, Chiribiquete, nobody is even allowed to go in there but there are at least 12 illegal roads built, according to Reuters!

These mafias, in this case it looks like the Estado Mayor – former FARC, is building these roads to conduct illegal activities in nature preserves, and the government is unwilling to do anything, or at least, so far it is not combatting the activity.

So that’s it for this week.

Remember to practice critical thinking

Stay mentally and physically active,

And above all, be kind to yourself and others.