FLASH BACK:RICHEST SUNKEN TREASURE FOUND OFF LUZON

[Philpns4:19]

FLASH BACK:  World’s richest sunken treasure found off Luzon, Philippines! #1

November 02, 2001 at 02:11:30           Source:www.treasurenet.com

June 19, 1995 LOOTING IN THE HIGH SEAS
World’s richest sunken treasure found off Luzon, Philippines! Part 1 of 4.

By: GEMMA LUZ COROTAN Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (First of four parts)

APARRI, Cagayan. A sunken World War II Japanese hospital ship carrying possibly one of the world’s richest treasures was found off the coast of Luzon according to its discoverer.

Fred Takaki, a Filipino Japanese maestro has decided to make the find public to protect his interest in the sunken vessel which he claims a rival group of American treasure hunters is trying to plunder. Takaki’s firm, the Pacific SeaQuest estimates that the gold and other precious metals in the ships, which was found in 1986 but was kept secret ever since could be worth up to $500 million.

Sea Quest’s American rivals, he said are working illegally in the areas and intend to smuggle the treasure out of the country, which could deprive the government of its rightful share. The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism was shown documents, video and photographic evidence of the shipwreck by its discoverer but agreed to their request not to name the ship and its exact location for fear of plunders.

The rival American group is also involved in salvaging operations on the wreck of the USS Charleston an American warship, which sank 1899. The hospital ship was discovered in the areas where the Charleston was found. The American team has looted hundreds of thousands of gold and silver Spanish “pieces of eight” (that) come from Charleston, says Pacific Quest, which owns salvaging rights to the Charleston and 32 other sunken vessels.

The Philippine government that should have received 75 percent of the treasure from the Charleston has not earned anything from the continued recovery of its treasures, estimated at $20 million. The same could happen to the hospital ship. Pacific SeaQuest said the US-based treasure hunters are after the hospital ship’s content and the Philippine government could again lose its rightful share.

Major players The treasure one of the subjects of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit being prepared in the United States and the Philippines by Pacific SeaQuest and its investors, has attracted some of the world’s most major players in the treasure hunting industry. Two of them are in the Philippines right now, fighting a cutthroat battle to get to the treasure first.   

One of them is Dennis Standefer 50, chair of DeepSea Recovery Corp., a marine salvage company based in California. DeepSea linked-up with Takaki and Pacific SeaQuest a local salvage company and was given a contract by the local government to salvage 33 sunken vessels in the waters around Camiguin Island (North Luzon). Pacific SeaQuest’s main rival for the treasure is Steven Morgan, 47, president of Mardive Corp. another marine salvage company.

Pacific SeaQuest accused Morgan of bribing some local government officials, as well as officials of the Bureau of Immigration (BID) and National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in a bid to steal the sunken treasure from its rightful owners. A check with the Office of the President showed Morgan has no permit to salvage treasures in the Philippines.

Exploits of Standefer and Morgan, both residents of San Pedro, California, have been widely reported in the US media. Standefer has taken part in other major finds during 30 years of worldwide treasure hunting. He worked with former Diver Mel Fisher, who salvage millions in silver coins from the Atocha a 17th century Spanish galleon that sunk near Key West, Florida in the USA. Standefer was also part of the salvage team that worked on the USS Central America off the South Carolina (USA) coast in 1989. That ship, laden with gold taken from the California gold rush, went down in a hurricane in 1857. The find was valued at $500 million.

Morgan made headlines in Canada when the Canadian government ordered his arrest for recovering treasure from the sunken steamship Atlantic in Lake Erie southwest of Long Point Canada. Morgan’s group has beaten Pacific SeaQuest to the remains of the USS Charleston, an American ship which also sank off Camiguin Island in 1899 during the American-Spanish war.

Looted wreck Charleston’s wreck was discovered five years ago by local divers and was the subject of special report by the Inquirer in 1993. An estimated 100,000 gold and Mexican coins have already been brought up by looters in nearby towns of Claveria, Camiguin, Aparri, San Vicente and Sta. Ana. Standefer, who did the research on the Charleston in US archives, believes the ship contains at least a million of these coins. Under Pacific SeaQuest’s contract with the government, 75 percent of the Charleston’s treasures should go to the Philippine treasury and 25 percent to the salvagers.

Save for its debris, there is almost nothing left of the Charleston for the government to recover, the PCIJ learned. Local divers sent by the Department of National Defense to check out the site were shocked to find out that three-fourths of the wreck-including the whole stern -where Standefer believes most of the gold coins lay, has been completely blown away.

Local divers and residents have said Morgan and his team of divers and explosives experts salvaged the area aboard a freighter three weeks ago. The group reportedly working in connivance with some local government officials and local detachment of Philippine Coast Guard work on the site without restriction. “He could easily packed up from $8 to $10 million worth of these coins”, Standefer said.

This account is bolstered by an intelligence officer who said that Morgan’s group bought a salvage boat called the Three Brothers for P350,000. Crewmen of the boat said it was used for diving in the Charleston wreck site. George Panugo, Commander of the coast guard detachment here and representative of the Presidential Security Group to the committee which overseas the salvage operations at Pacific SeaQuest, said the boat is owned by Korean a national. (Note: Panugo was later murdered before he could testify against Morgan at a hearing in Manila).

A local policeman has confirmed that the Korean and Romeo Quesada, the captain of the boat have been working as fronts for Morgan. Quesada actually obtain a contract from Assistant Executive Secretary for Legal Affairs Romeo Corona to excavate treasure in Lai-lo Cagayan. A visit to the site however revealed that the permit covers private land over which the government has no jurisdiction to issue excavation rights.

Standefer believes that Morgan got the permit to justify using the boat which was never seen in the supposed site. Standefer believes Morgan is now after the hospital ship, which he calls “ the real object of his search”.

The hospital ship Military and other documents furnished the PCIJ describe the hospital ship as a 400-foot passenger cargo vessel, of European make and owned by a Japanese shipping company. The vessel was commandeered by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II and disguised as a hospital ship. The red and white crosses were painted on the smokestacks and sides of the ship to deceive the Allied Forces.

According to the documents pulled from years of research in the United States, Japan and Germany by DeepSea Recovery Corp. the vessel was loaded with over 1,500 Japanese civilians and a large quantity of valuable war prizes and strategic metals while it was decked in Singapore in 1945.

From Singapore, the documents say, the ship proceed to Manila and four other ports of the Philippines, where an additional 750 tons of war booty was loaded as well as about 500 more civilians. After being anchored for two days off Camiguin Island, a very remote harbor in the north, the ships were attacked and bombed by allied planes. It sunk almost immediately, killing all of its passengers and crew. The documents say that a number of other ships also involved in the transport of strategic metals and treasures looted from the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries went down during the same air attack.

Japanese military documents confirm that the hospital was carrying tons of gold and silver bullion, hundreds of boxes of gold and silver coins and various gold and silver objects consisting of gold Buddha’s, statutes, jewelry and sterling silver serving pieces. Two large chests of jewelry were also placed on board the vessel.

The hospital ship is believed to be just one of several such vessel sent by the Japanese ostensibly to deliver Red Cross supplies to Allied prisoners of war and to pick up wounded Japanese soldiers returning to Japan. These ships, which were unarmed, were always guaranteed safe passage by the United States, usually picked up cargoes of strategic metals and treasure plundered from occupied countries and sent to Japan to help finance the war.

When United States Intelligence found this out, even hospital ships were not spared from attacks. One of these ships was the Awa Maru, which sunk several hundred kilometers from where Takaki’s hospital ship was found.

The Awa Maru went down in the Formosa Strait on April 4, 1945 after being torpedoed by the US submarine Queenfish. The Awa Maru has a documented cargo, which is now considered history’s richest treasure. As reported by the San Diego Evening Tribune, is consisted of 40 tons of gold and 12 tons of platinum worth about $58 million, bails of paper currency, 40 cases of jewelry, plundered throughout Southeast Asia by Japanese Occupation forces. It also contained 150,000 karats of diamonds in three safes, 2,000 tons of lead, 800 tons of titanium.

The estimated minimum value of the Awa Maru is $500 million. The total value could exceed $5 billion. Takaki’s hospital ship, which reportedly docked in Singapore at the same time as the Awa Maru was there and could be worth as much, Standefer, speculates.
(End of part 1)

[Southern TH]

Wow that's great find.

[admin]

Wow that's great find.

Yea, where are the other three parts (2, 3 & 4)?

[DINDO BAYAUA]

Fred Takaki was from Mangaldan, Pangasinan, the mother was from Bicol and he was a good smoker. He use to stay here in a city in Isabela but his "sacred ground" was the northern Luzon area, from Abra, Tabuk, Kalinga to the whole of Region 2.

[Philpns4:19]

I am still trying to reconcile the other parts. Great Information for Luzon and Mindanao those who are from Camiguin Island and Cagayan de Oro City, Misamis Oriental TH for further investigative venture. Thanks for dropping by at this post.

Phil

[Philpns4:19]

World’s richest sunken treasure found off Luzon, Philippines! #2

November 02, 2001 at 02:15:01
In Reply to: World’s richest sunken treasure found off Luzon, Philippines! #1
posted by GEMMA LUZ COROTAN on November 02, 2001 at 02:11:30

June 20, 1995, The Philippine Daily Inquirer Part 2 of 4 parts.
(This same four part article was on the front page in all six of the other major dailies in the Philippines, including Today, The Manila Bulletin, the Philippine Star, The Daily News, etc.).

Treasures from the wreck

APARRI, Cagayan – When Fred Takaki discovered the sunken World War II hospital ship off the coast of Camiguin in 1986 after years of searching, he thought he was found what he was looking for the Awa Maru, believed to be history’s richest sunken treasure. The Awa Maru, which sank in the Formosa Strait on April 1, 1945 minutes after it was torpedoed by the US submarine Queenfish, is estimated to be worth between $500 to $5 billion.

Takaki, who was born before the war to a Filipina and a Japanese intelligence officer, first heard about a hospital ship loade4d with treasures in 1963 from four Japanese friends. They were the ones who got him started on treasure hunting, Takaki says. I was working in Ermita when I met a Japanese friend who needed help to check out a treasure hunting operation in Ipo Dam, Montalban Rizal. They showed me what they got, two Japanese samurais supposedly owned by General Kubota I told him what he was doing was dangerous. He went back to Japan, Takaki recounts.

Several years later, the Japanese returned and invited him to go to Baguio with him to check out some treasure sites. We stayed there for four months. He told me the story of the hospital ship. He said it was in Camiguin in the north. We went to Camiguin and started looking for it. He ran out of money. We never found the ship, Takaki adds.

Takaki went back to Camiguin with another group of Japanese who were looking for treasure inland. He saw it as his opportunity to look for hospital ship. “Naglakad akong mag-isa, kinausap ko ang mga matatanda sa isla. May nakapagkwento sa kin na matanda da merong malaking barkong lumobog na malapit lang sa Camiguin.

The ship was loaded I was told with at least 7,000 passengers many of them doctors, nurses, women and children when it was bombed by the Americans. The story was consistent with what the Japanese told me about the Awa Maru. Only the Awa Maru could have as many passengers, Takaki says.

I started scuba diving around the sea. There were a lot of sunken vessels down there, but none seemed to fit the description of the Awa Maru, he says.

Then 1986, Takaki found his ship. Two-third of the ship was buried under 30 feet of sand but most of it is still intack. (The PCJ agreed to withhold the exact location and description of the wreck to protect the interest of the finders.) By this time, Takaki had accumulated some equipment including a metal scanner and a small airlift, which he used to remove the sand from some of the cabins.

It was a hospital ship all right. It could not have been a warship because there were no cannons on top or any type of armaments. A warship does not have as many people in it as this ship. There were laboratories inside medicine containers and hospital equipment, Takaki says. What struck him was the inscription in the keys and the cabin doors were in English not Japanese, I believed then that I found the Awa Maru, the Awa Maru was of European make, he says.

Takaki remove the letters molded in Bronze on the side of the ship and had the Japanese letters translated. The letters read “Maru” which means ship. Takaki set out his house in Camiguin to guard his found. He also conducted a small salvage operation on the site of the wreck. This very limited part time salvage effort resulted the recovery of over 2,000 items, including approximately 800 pieces of Chinese plates, cups, dishes and other ceramics from the Ming, Ching and Sung Dynasties.

During the last three years he also recovered 11 small gold bars each one weighing about 100 grams and contained in small wood boxes. He also found dozens of other antiques such as large brass burners, some of them almost 1,000 years old. Diving for gold Takaki also brought up thousands of bars of tin, brass, lead, zinc, and titanium as well as at least three 62-kilo bags of platinum group metals. Over the years however, Takaki and his native divers using minimal equipment have only manage to skim the surface of the wreck for treasure. Most of it lay underneath forms of sand and metal that was when he decided to look for a financier.

He met up with Josue Mapaeg of Nueva Viscaya and Romy Callado of Cagayan, two long time treasure hunters together they looked for a financier who put up the capital needed to salvage all the treasure. They approach Dennis Standefer bringing with them some of the artifacts that were brought up from the ship Standefer has been shuttling to the United States and the Philippines buying antiques and artifacts from local dealers and finding a market for them in the United States. He had also worked as a consultant to a several hunting projects in the Philippines during the Marcos and Aquino administrations.

I got a lot of these stories everyday. Out of fifty stories you’ll be lucky to hear one that isn’t pure baloney. They told n me about the hospital ship. They showed me artifacts from 500 to 1,000 years old that supposedly came from the ship. I saw the keys and some medical paraphernalia, I think I heard enough to decide the story was possible but there was very little research on it, Standefer says.

Standefer went back to the United States to do more research and to confirm the existence of hospital ship that sank to the Philippine water. He found the documents from the German military and several archives in the United States for which he claim to have paid $10,000. These documents list over 1,000 shipwrecks in the Philippines, state their exact location and describe their cargo.

The hospital ship which sunk in 1945 off Camiguin was one of those listed. The document says it has the biggest treasure on board. Excited, Standefer returned to the Philippines and went to Camiguin to see if the wreck really existed.

His team conducted a visual survey of the ship, took videos and photographs of the site and outfitted a 32-foot survey boat. Diving equipment, communications, and a portable computer were transported to the area for survey operations. Three new compressors were brought to fill scuba tanks used by local divers and to operate the airlifts.

Aside from the wreck of the hospital ship, the team also saw the USS Charleston wreck and an additional four ships probably containing treasure. These include another unidentified hospital a third possible treasure carrying Japanese ship, a Spanish galleon with visible brass cannons and an American trading vessel Altogether, the team discovered a total of 33 World War II vintage sunken warship mostly Japanese.

On a clear day most of the wrecks can be seen from the surface, Mapaeg says. The ships are in different states of destruction. There are some, which are under 100 feet.

There are ships lying on top of each other. A lot of them are just a pile of steel. One of them has an airplane sitting on top of it. Standefer says. The team found one hospital ship mostly intact but buried under 30 feet of sand . ( The PCIJ agreed not to decide the salvage condition of the shipwreck.)

From the location and condition of the hospital ships wreck at least $7 million worth of equipment are needed to salvage the wreck. Standefer estimates, these would include a bigger boat, powerful airlift, underwater cutting torches and metal basket with cranes.

Standefer went back the United States to invite foreign investors to bankroll the project. Meanwhile his Filipino partners formed Pacific SeaQuest, a marine salvage company. In turn, the company signed a contract with Takaki, which give the latter 10 percent of SeaQuest’s 25 percent share of the find.

By law the company is required to give 75 percent of the treasure to the Philippine government. The company applied for and was granted permits to salvage the 33 shipwrecks around Camiguin Island by the Philippine Coast Guard in 1993.

The Office of the President also gave the Pacific SeaQuest the salvage rights to the ships and their cargo including the treasure. One of the shipwrecks with Pacific SeaQuest’s salvage area is the Charleston. That was when the trouble with Steven Morgan a rival American fortune hunter began. (To be continued tomorrow)

[Philpns4:19]

Good day!
  The last part of the story of the Richest Sunken Treasure Found Off Luzon: Special  Report could not be opened of the website source.www.treasurenet.com. We got only 2,3,4 reports. Anyway, we could still get remnants.

All the best,
Phil

[admin]

Good day!
  The last part of the story of the Richest Sunken Treasure Found Off Luzon: Special  Report could not be opened of the website source.www.treasurenet.com. We got only 2,3,4 reports. Anyway, we could still get remnants.

All the best,
Phil

OK. Thanks!
TW