A treasure hunter plans to land £1billion by bringing a 250-year-old British ship back to the surface.
Ruben Collado, from Argentina, hopes to resurrect the Lord Clive, which sunk in 1763 off the coast of Uruguay.
He believes there is £1billion of gold bullion on board the sunken ship, which was named after Clive of India, and will begin his treasure hunt next month.
He discovered the wreck in 2004 and is leading an operation to raise it.
He told The Times: ‘The imperial vessel could contain €1,200m in gold coins.
‘And that is without considering goods such as rum, opium and silk stored in lead pipes.
‘The important thing is to get these ships because they will give us the true magnitude of the story,’ said Collado. ‘This is the history of Latin America and the Spanish.’
The 64-gun vessel, which was built in Hull, sailed to South America for the East India Company to bring funds and personnel for British military campaigns.
But it was sunk by cannon fire during the Seven Years’ War in an attempt to retake Colonia del Sacramento, a former colony of Britain’s ally Portugal, which had been seized by the Spanish.
Source: Daily Mail