britanniasgold

Message of Condolence

Mon, 26 Jun 2023 12:01:57 GMT

BGL Message of Condolence

Britannia’s Gold Limited wishes to sincerely express its heartfelt condolences and sympathies following the loss of the five crew members aboard the Titan manned submersible which was lost in the North Atlantic on a dive to explore the wreck of the RMS Titanic.

As well recognized experts in the field of deep ocean exploration, our BGL colleagues Captain Mark Martin and Neil Cunningham Dobson, have spent many hours this past week providing unique insight through podcasts, interviews with the major news networks, and writing articles for major publications. We hope that their explanations of the challenges involved in this type of exploration, as well as the search for and eventual recovery of Titan have been helpful in educating the public.

From the entire team at Britannia’s Gold, we sincerely wish all of the families comfort and peace through this hard time.

With caring thoughts.

Philip Reid

CEO & Chairman

Britannia’s Gold Ltd

Status Update: The BGL Salvage Team Has Set Sail

Tue, 29 Mar 2022 09:34:00 GMT

Having completed mobilisation, the BGL salvage vessel left its Scottish base at 2:15pm today and is sailing to the target wreck. Passage time is approximately 30 hours but the salvage team intend to be operational before midnight tomorrow.

We would like to thank all shareholders for their confidence and continued support. Ideally, after two immensely frustrating years, we can now deliver the success we all hope for and we will keep you abreast of progress.

Marine Treasure Hunters Set Sail Find 300 Billion From War Wrecks

Fri, 14 Sep 2018 10:03:45 GMT

Gold hunters’ OSV identifies $750m of lost cargo

Thu, 14 Jun 2018 10:00:42 GMT

Gary Dixon | Trade Winds – Offshore

Survey by Ostensjo ship pinpoints World War wrecks that will yield treasure.

A UK company’s offshore support vessel (OSV) will soon be heading out to sea to bring back the first batch of lost wartime gold and silver cargoes worth $750m.

Britannia’s Gold (BGL) used a chartered-in research ship, Ostenso Rederi’s 2,800-dwt Edda Fonn (built 2003), during April to survey seven known World War I and World War II wreck sites off Northern Ireland and the south and west of the Republic of Ireland.

During both world wars the British government shipped gold bullion to pay for munitions and goods. The estimated present day value of these shipments is about £300bn ($404bn). BGL’s research has identified more than 700 vessels that were specific gold and silver carriers.

Operational director Will Carrier told TradeWinds: “We are exceptionally busy with the continued analysis of the survey data and forward planning. We actually took a look at seven targets while out there and found two to be unworkable for various reasons. However this leaves us with five that we are making plans for right now.”

He added: “We are aiming to be out there in the very near future to commence recoveries. The total combined cargoes would be in the region of $750m.”

The OSV was hired for 22 firm days, with single day options. The survey was carried out to make sure the right vessels had been identified, and to assess the level of damage, environmental conditions and currents.

“The seabed out there is littered with them,” Carrier said. “That area was the gateway to the Americas; that’s where the Germans kept their U-boats. The cargoes were shipped out for safekeeping and as payment for supplies.”

Silver, zinc and tin found

BGL hopes to land the first cargo within 60 days of heading back out to sea. The company first looked at two targets within a mile of each other off the south coast of the Republic of Ireland. Both were sunk in the World War 1 era, the first a passenger liner and the second a cargo vessel. In 500 metres of water a large volume of tin was found, as well as zinc ingots.

“These commodity metals are in high demand on the metals markets and given the cargo volume of each wreck is considerable, BGL will return and recover these metals when we salvage the precious metal cargoes,” Carrier said.

The next wreck was “terribly broken”, appearing almost flattened, BGL said. Despite the wreck’s condition, BGL conducted a full survey but concluded salvage would be difficult and consequently we will delay an attempt on it,” it added.

A fourth vessel was sunk following heavy attack early on in World War 2. Having originally thought this a difficult target to salvage, the survey revealed that a simple ‘surgical extraction’ would be both straightforward and effective.

Charitable contribution

The last vessel was a sailing ship built in the 1890s.

“This was an easy and rewarding survey as we could see the vessel’s main cargoes resting in place as if they were only loaded onboard yesterday,” BGL said. “The targeted cargo will be out of sight and way below decks. However our survey identified the requirements for a successful recovery from this wreck. It was difficult to accurately quantify the size of the silver service collection. But from what can be identified it appears to be quite large and will probably have all other accompanying silver service items in the close vicinity. In addition, carrying such unique individual markings is expected to add to the value,” the company added.

The salvage work will involve cutting into the ships. The UK government is the owner of the bounty. BGL will store it and enter into negotiations to divide up the spoils. Some of its cut will be kept for future projects, some will be given to charity and some will be for shareholders.

One of the company’s directors is James Fisher CEO Nick Henry.

LINK TO ARTICLE (PNG)

Mixing Business with Treasure

Mon, 30 Apr 2018 09:56:33 GMT

– THE HUNT FOR £125 BILLION IN SHIPWRECKED GOLD

MARCUS WEBB | ILLUSTRATIONS: ANGUS GREIG

On 20th October a major salvage operation set sail from an undisclosed British port intent on tracking down lost war gold. Wreck diving for treasure is a high-risk, high-adrenaline calling, as we discovered in DG #29 when we met the intrepid cargonauts who scour the seas for billions in sunken bullion

You fucking bastard. Look what you’ve done to my ship!” It wasn’t the normal way to address one’s superior aboard a British Royal Navy cruiser, especially when the man being abused was a freshly knighted rear admiral.

But these were exceptional circumstances. It was April 30th 1942, the height of World War II, and HMS Edinburgh – the flagship of rear admiral Sir Stuart Bonham Carter, which was under the command of the effing and blinding Captain Hugh Faulkner – had just taken a direct hit from a German U-boat.

The Edinburgh was leading convoy QP 11, a group of 13 merchant ships escorted by 18 warships crossing from Murmansk in Russia to Scapa Flow off the coast of Scotland. Faulkner believed the torpedoing of the Edinburgh was Bonham Carter’s fault for having demanded he change the ship’s course with the immortal words “I say, old boy, let’s go over and have a look at the ice, shall we?”, ignoring warnings that German U-boats would often lie in wait beneath intriguing-looking icebergs.

The German wolfpack attacked, landing two direct hits on the Edinburgh. With the ship taking water and listing dangerously, the crew was ordered portside to even things out. The ship righted, but by then three German destroyers were closing in for the kill. The Edinburgh fought gallantly, sinking one destroyer, but took a further torpedo hit, and 57 British seamen died during the exchange. Bonham Carter gave the order to abandon ship.

Bonham Carter and Faulkner may have disagreed on icebergs, but they shared a powerful secret. They were two of only a handful of people who knew that as their ship went down it was taking five-and-a-half imperial tons of gold bullion with it. Back then it was worth £1.5 million. Today, thanks to the rising price of gold, £173 million. And it was all sitting at the bottom of the Barents Sea.

Raiding Davy Jones’s locker

Philip Reid is a man who loves a good maritime tale, but his interest is professional as well as personal – as a businessman, he has scented an opportunity beneath the ocean waves. “Wars are expensive,” he says. “During both world wars Britain didn’t have a great deal of cash, but what it did have was gold and we shipped it around the world to pay for supplies.”

As Bonham Carter discovered, shipping gold during a war was fraught with danger. “Just 36 percent of war gold reached its destination,” says Reid. “So over 60 percent is down there somewhere. And we’ve decided to go and get it.” There’s a lot of it to get. Reid believes that his firm, Britannia’s Gold, has located British bullion worth £125 billion lying in Davy Jones’s locker. “People will call it a treasure hunt, but this isn’t a treasure hunt – it’s a rescue mission. We know exactly where it is,” he says.

It is a mission that’s been 25 years in the making. “By sheer chance in the early ’90s a researcher turned up a misfiled government document regarding gold movements,” says Reid. Inspired, the researcher started piecing together gold movements throughout the world wars, building a body of work that – through a convoluted chain of connections taking in American investors, Swiss bankers and Reid’s brother-in-law – came into Reid’s hands. “It’s a massive jigsaw puzzle, but what the researcher emerged with was proof of what gold was sent out, which route it took and, if it sank, where,” says Reid. “The results are staggering.”

The research identified 7,500 sunken merchant ships, 700 of which were carrying gold. After having the data inspected by the University of Oxford and the English Naval History Society, Reid launched Britannia’s Gold, a company offering an unlikely investment opportunity. Backers could finance a series of salvage operations and, should they be successful, reap extraordinary rewards. It’s a costly enterprise: Reid estimates that salvage missions cost £50,000 a day and can take up to 45 days.

He believes it’s worth the expense. “If the cargoes on any of the ships are what we forecast, then the results will be absolutely ridiculous,” he says. “An average cargo would yield £100 million.” A series of investors and supporters agreed, including James Fisher & Sons, Britain’s largest marine services company.

“The salvage industry has a bit of a treasure hunter reputation,” says Nick Henry, the company’s CEO. “The interesting thing about Britannia’s Gold is that the proposition is based on data research. They aren’t just marine people, they are archivists.” Reid successfully raised more than £3 million and, on 20th October 2017, the first Britannia’s Gold expedition left from an undisclosed port, setting sail in search of an untold fortune.

The salvage of the century

One gold shipment not on the Britannia’s Gold hitlist is that of HMS Edinburgh – somebody got there first. In 1981 an operation led by diving company Wharton Williams Ltd was given permission by the British government to attempt to locate the Edinburgh and recover the gold on board.

Ric Wharton, the man behind Wharton Williams Ltd, is sceptical of Britannia’s Gold’s chances. “I’m one of the most jaundiced people about these projects,” he admits. Wharton doesn’t doubt that the company’s academic research is compelling, but believes that documentation alone is not enough. “At the time we looked at the Edinburgh, a number of the crew were still alive. You cannot beat that,” he says.

In April 1981 Wharton’s salvage mission located the Edinburgh and filmed the wreckage – now entombed under more than 800 feet of water – using the basic equipment available at the time. “You could have driven a double-decker bus through those torpedo holes,” remembers Wharton. Finding the ship was one thing, but finding the gold was another. “These ships are 600 feet long and made up of a honeycomb of little compartments,” says Wharton. “You’ve got to know where you’re looking.”

“We calculated that if the boxes of gold had been stacked up high then when the boat sank they would have smashed straight through a bulkhead and into the ammunition store where we’d never be able to get them out,” says Wharton. The team managed to track down the sailor charged with stowing away the gold – a man who wasn’t supposed to know what he was dealing with. “As the cargo was being loaded, a box broke open to reveal the gold,” says Wharton. “Our man was sent down to repack it. So I said to him, ‘It’s the $64,000 question: how did you stack the boxes up?’ ‘Stack them up?’ he replied. ‘They weighed a ton… We just spread them out and stuck all the other kit on top of them.’ Now we knew that instead of being two feet above the floor, the gold was about two inches. We did the impact calculations and came to the conclusion that the gold probably wouldn’t have broken through the bulkhead. The entire salvage operation, which cost £3 million in 1981 [the equivalent of £12 million today] was based on that piece of information.”

So what does Wharton think when he sees organisations like Britannia’s Gold who have to operate without the benefit of witnesses? “I think ‘Naaaaaah…’”, he says, shaking his head.

The waiting game

Will Carrier was employed by Wharton Williams Ltd during the salvage of the Edinburgh and is now operational director of Britannia’s Gold. He can understand his former boss’s concerns, but thinks time has brought benefits as well as drawbacks.

“I’ve seen the evolution of equipment and the potential it has to revolutionise salvage,” he says. “The oil companies have invested in equipment for finding oil that is easily converted for salvage missions and – thanks to the slump in the oil industry – it’s much more affordable than before.”

Rather than the video equipment used on the Edinburgh, Carrier uses acoustics for the majority of his surveys. “We send down cameras that record using sound,” he explains. “They allow us to build detailed 3D representations of the wreck. We make our plans based upon the wreck that we’re actually looking at. Then off we pop and get on with the salvage.”

“Off we pop” might be understating things a bit. The mission that left in October 2017 featured 56 crew members and a 109m-long ship with a 250-tonne crane onboard. They were at the site for a month, with two shifts working around the clock. “This is not a smash-and-grab affair,” says Carrier, who also worked on the salvage of the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk in 2001. “We need to surgically cut into the wreck, creating the least amount of disturbance. Each wreck is individual and has to be assessed as such. But there is always the same feeling of excitement on seeing any of them properly for the first time after years of studying them on paper. Exploring the shipwreck and seeing her as she was so many years ago, discovering artefacts and items of cargo and bringing them to the surface never fails to set the pulse racing.”

Pulses didn’t quicken as much as hoped in October when Britannia’s Gold explored its first wreck. “Every last nook and cranny, every last cubic inch was just full of silt,” says Carrier – and there was worse to come. “We also came across quite a large number of 4.7-inch shells,” continues Carrier. Faced with live ammunition and deteriorating weather conditions, the crew was forced to go home. Carrier is philosophical about the setback. “It’s a waiting game,” he says.

It’s quite a risk for us to take. We’re the ones fronting the costs – not knowing how much we get to keep is frustrating”

Wharton knows exactly how the waiting game feels. The Edinburgh mission ran over time and over budget, stretching his company to its limit. “We had everything riding on this including our houses,” he remembers. “If there’d been any more delays we’d have had to abandon the entire thing.”

Due to the secrecy around the operation, Wharton and his colleagues developed a code book built around greyhound racing terminology. “The term to say that we found the gold was ‘Dog 36’,” he says. “My wife and I were at a dinner party and I was called out to the kitchen to take a call. I went back in, shaking, and sat opposite my wife. I got her attention and said, ‘We’ve got a Dog 36.’ That moment is forever imprinted on my memory.”

The team had struck the motherlode. The gold they brought to the surface remains the greatest amount of bullion ever recovered and at the greatest depth. Not that Wharton got to keep all of ‘the salvage of the century’, however. “The British and Russian governments got 55 percent,” he says. “The remainder was split amongst the contractors involved in the operation. Still, we all did very well out of it.”

Should Britannia’s Gold’s missions prove successful, Wharton has one piece of advice: beware the tax man.

As the Edinburgh – like all sunk HMS vessels – was a war grave, the British government had been required to sanction the salvage mission. “Despite having a contract, as we were heading back they said, ‘You’re importing gold. You’ve got to pay VAT on it,’” says Wharton. “Thankfully we stopped the boat and managed to sell to the London gold market while still at sea. We got away with that by the skin of our teeth.”

People said to me, ‘Talk to me when it goes well.’ What they don’t seem to realise is that, if it goes well, I’ll never need to speak to them again”

While the managers of Britannia’s Gold are very aware of the need to be respectful, all the vessels they have identified are merchant ships and thus not classified as war graves. They acknowledge, however, that the amount the government might look to claim is a risk factor. “The government is the legal owner of the cargo,” says Reid. “But they don’t appear to be interested. At the moment it’s a case of ‘If you do find it, then we will talk to you’. But that’s quite a risk for us to take. We’re the ones fronting the costs – not knowing how much we get to keep is frustrating.”

It could also prove costly. In 2007 it was announced that US company Odyssey Marine Exploration (OME) had discovered the Spanish frigate Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, which sank off Portugal in 1804, and recovered an estimated US$500 million (£314 million) worth of silver and gold coins from the wreck. The Spanish government filed a claim against the recovered cargo saying it belonged to them. A US court agreed and in 2012, Odyssey was ordered to return every last doubloon to the Spanish government.

“It was very disappointing,” says Mark Gordon, OME’s CEO & president. “We followed the legal rules, but politics and ulterior motives can still prevent the right thing from happening. We believe a representative sample [of any find] should be kept in a permanent museum collection and that the rest should be made available for sale, with the economic proceeds shared between the salvor and the authorised government or owner. The UK government already has a very effective law in place for finds made on land and since implementing this law, the number of ‘reported finds’ has increased dramatically.”

Even without an agreement in place, Britannia’s Gold believes the rewards warrant the risks. But the clock is ticking. Carrier says that the window for being able to rent the equipment they need cheaply is “two to three years” before the oil industry recovers. There’s also the chance that somebody else will find the wrecks first. But the biggest concern, according to Reid, is that they will just run out of money.

“Quite simply, the day you don’t pay your salvage vessel is the day it turns around and goes home,” he says. “Given the technology nowadays, no salvage is too difficult – the issue is economic. We could actually plan multiple salvages, we have more targets than you can shake a stick at. We could probably do 12 this year alone if we had the money.”

Carrier agrees. “There are three-and-a-half million shipwrecks lying on the sea bed,” he says. “The majority of the world’s gold reserves reside somewhere within a small portion of them. The shallower ones have probably been pillaged over the years, but the deeper ones have basically been left untouched due to the technology not allowing salvage missions to get that deep – until now.”

And so it all comes back to the backers. “There’s a healthy degree of skepticism,” admits Reid. “People said to me, ‘Talk to me when it goes well.’ What they don’t seem to realise is that, if it goes well, I’ll never need to speak to them again.”

While Ric Wharton won’t be investing himself, he wishes Reid and his team luck. “I wouldn’t want to put the dampener on people or no one would ever look for anything,” he says. “You have got to take risks. You’ve got to be confident, but you mustn’t get carried away with the excitement of the treasure hunt. This is a serious business.”

Read Article

BGL Makes the Headlines

Thu, 22 Feb 2018 10:52:39 GMT

Article in Paddock Life – January 2018

Click below to access full article • Enjoy!

An incredible journey continues…

Fri, 29 Sep 2017 09:47:51 GMT

Here’s our journey so far and as we move closer to the salvage phase, you still have time to be a part of our recovery.

Visit www.angeleqt.com to sign-up to become a shareholder in the greatest ever gold recovery in history.

OCEAN GOLD – World Premiere!

Sat, 09 Sep 2017 09:46:05 GMT

New video from Project Triton

In August, BGL completed project Triton successfully. Triton encompassed sunken gold carriers in the North Atlantic. A survey team of 37 personnel worked around the clock to locate, identify and survey the targets using state of the art marine survey equipment. Next phase will start in October when BGL again set sails, this time to salvage cargo from the surveyed wrecks.

OCEAN GOLD – THE VIDEO

Crowd funding is open at www.angeleqt.com and will close on September 30th. Become a shareholder in the worlds greatest ever gold recovery in history!

This investment opportunity is brought to you by Angel Corporate Finance Ltd, regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK. CAPITAL AT RISK

Project Facts…

Mon, 04 Sep 2017 09:43:28 GMT

Treasure hunt to recover £4.5billion worth of British gold trapped in merchant ships torpedoed by Nazis

Wed, 29 Mar 2017 09:21:45 GMT

By Lexi Finnegan • The Telegraph

Billions of pounds worth of British gold is hidden in the wrecks of merchant ships sunk during the First and Second World Wars, a team of experts believe. Four research groups have spent 25 years producing a database tracking the gold shipped by the British Government to pay for munitions and goods during both World Wars. Of the 7,500 merchant ships sunk, the teams have identified more than 700 which they believe may have been carrying vast quantities of gold and other precious metals.

Organisation Britannia’s Gold has now amassed more than eight million documents which point to the locations of the ships, which may have carried at least £4.5 billion. Their research also revealed that during the Second World War, many of the merchant ships were specifically attacked because of their precious cargo and German U-boat commanders were told to make them priority targets. Sinking the boats aimed to reduce Britain’s ability to buy munitions and food and the enemy’s plan was to return and collect the gold after winning the war. But decades later, the gold has not been recovered and in a few weeks, a £15 million recovery operation is due to launch a few hundred miles west of Ireland.

All will be treated with respect and those wrecks known to be sensitive and specifically, to have carried evacuee children, will be avoided at all costs Britannia’s Gold

Britannia’s Gold will launch search and salvage crews which use “state-of-the-art Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicles and other robotic tooling systems” to recover the gold and bring it to the surface. The team are planning to initially target a “cluster” of three ships in one area – two from the First World War and one from the Second World War – which could contain around £750 million. On their website, the organisation says: “From our vast research database, we have access to invaluable information such as cargoes, wreck locations, water depths and legal ownerships.

“The circumstances of the sinking and location of the wrecks are often further confirmed by inquest documentation and survivor accounts.”

However the team has stressed that the targeted wrecks are not ships such as the war grave SS City of Benares, which was torpedoed in 1940 by the Germans and resulted in the death of 77 evacuated children. The website says: “All will be treated with respect and those wrecks known to be sensitive and specifically, to have carried evacuee children, will be avoided at all costs.

“As a mark of respect, a commemorative plaque will be placed at each shipwreck location upon completion of the team’s operations.”

All British warships sunk since 1914 are classified as both war graves and sovereign territory but most merchant wrecks do not have such protection.

Philip Reid, a former banker with Merrill Lynch and chairman of Britannia’s Gold said the first portion of any recovery will go to the British Government which is the owner of the cargo. After covering the operation’s costs, the rest will be shared among investors, with a percentage going to merchant marine charities.

How a crack team of marine experts spent 20 years breaking secret wartime codes and scouring archives to finally trace the £4.5BILLION of British gold sunk by the Nazis

Wed, 29 Mar 2017 09:11:41 GMT

By Robert Hardman for the Daily Mail

City of Benares was sunk while transporting 11,000 evacuees from UK to Canada
But it, along with other ships, may have been targeted for its secret cargo of gold
After 25 years of research, a group of marine experts has produced a database
It reveals gold movements from Britain to other countries in World Wars I and II

Dressed only in their nightclothes, some clutching teddy bears, others clinging to each other, the tiny occupants of Lifeboat Eight were the first to be lowered from the ship. Suddenly, a rope slipped. For a moment, the boat dangled vertically, spilling its 30 terrified passengers in to the sea, before crashing down on top of them. In the teeth of a North Atlantic gale and in the dead of night, they all disappeared.

They included 13-year-old Gussie Grimmond, and her sisters Violet, ten, and Connie, nine. Their little brothers, Edward, eight, and Leonard, five, assigned to another lifeboat, were never seen again, either. They were 600 miles from land and even further from the parents who packed them off in search of a safer, better life. The Grimmond children, whose home had been bombed to pieces weeks before, were among 262 passengers and crew who would perish on that appalling night in September 1940. Even today, it is shocking to read details of the sinking of the City of Benares, an 11,000-ton British liner hit by a German torpedo while carrying evacuees to Canada. The tragedy would be debated for years. Where was the Royal Navy? How could Germany attack a ship full of children?

Now an intriguing new dimension to the tragedy has emerged. The City of Benares, along with many other ships, may have been targeted for a reason: its secret cargo of gold bullion. After 25 years of research, a group of marine experts has produced a comprehensive and closely-guarded database of secret gold movements from Britain to the U.S. and elsewhere in World Wars I and II. The gold was being sent by both the government and private institutions to pay their wartime bills. But a substantial amount ended up on the seabed, courtesy of the German U-boats which made every trans-Atlantic voyage a game of Russian roulette.

Now some of it may be heading for the surface as the most ambitious treasure hunt of modern times gets underway. For, after painstakingly cross-referring classified Bank of England and government records with new archive material in Britain and overseas, the researchers believe they have pinpointed a series of Atlantic wrecks containing gold with a combined value of at least £4.5 billion. That is just a conservative estimate.

The research also revealed that many of these ships were attacked precisely because of their precious cargo. The enemy had worked out ways to identify which vessels might be carrying gold, and U-boat commanders were told to make them priority targets. Not only would sinking them reduce Britain’s ability to buy munitions and food but the plan was to return and salvage the gold after winning the war. Might this have been why the City of Benares was singled out from a convoy of 19 ships on that ghastly night?

Even today, it is shocking to read details of the sinking of the City of Benares, an 11,000-ton British liner hit by a German torpedo while carrying evacuees to Canada. For there is now strong evidence that, sealed inside her at the bottom of the sea, lies a cargo of gold. It all sounds like the plot of an Alistair MacLean thriller.

But I am in the offices of top City of London marine law firm, Campbell Johnston Clark, under conditions of strict confidentiality, inspecting what is perhaps the most valuable sunken treasure map of all time. It features wrecks all over the Atlantic. Many are already on nautical charts, as are the resting places of thousands of ships lost in two World Wars. But what no one has worked out, until now, is which of them were carrying gold, how much was on board and where it was stored. Without that information, any hit-and-miss salvage exercise would be a ruinous waste of time and money.

Armed with this fresh data, a pioneering £15 million recovery operation is due to get under way in a few weeks a few hundred miles west of Ireland. Using precision robotics rather than human divers, the salvage team will target a ‘cluster’ of three ships in one area, two from World War I and one from World War II, and cut into them. All lie in international waters. A second ‘cluster’ has been earmarked elsewhere. If the first three wrecks yield just half of what they are believed to contain, the result should be a jackpot for the investors, as well as for the taxman and for charities, too. Between them, they contain an estimated £750 million in gold. And once the amount of recovered gold hits a certain level, a percentage of profits will go to maritime causes.

But one decision has already been taken. ‘We will not touch the City of Benares,’ says Will Carrier, operations director of Britannia’s Gold, the company behind the project.

‘We will treat all these wrecks with respect but Benares is designated as a war grave and should be treated as such. It’s still a very sensitive subject.’

All British warships sunk since 1914 are classified as both war graves and sovereign territory. But most merchant wrecks have no such protection. And though the City of Benares was granted war grave status in recognition of its exceptionally tragic circumstances, the three ships earmarked for the initial ‘cluster’ were not.

Former diver Will Carrier has worked in ‘deep water robotics’ for 15 years. He was part of the team that helped raise the Kursk, the Russian submarine which sank with all hands in the Barents Sea in 2000. He says looking for Britain’s wartime gold is a lot easier than looking for wooden Spanish galleons that have often broken up by now. Steel-built 20th-century warships tend to be in one piece. The hard part is working out which wrecks to aim for and where the gold was actually stored within. And that is where 25 years of research kicks in.

This extraordinary detective story began in the early Nineties when a founder member of this secretive project was looking for World War I wrecks that had cargoes of copper and tin. While in the Public Records Office, going through a box of mariners’ wills, he found a folder which had been filed in the wrong place. A scribbled handwritten note on the front stated: ‘Publication of Gold Imports and Exports by the Bank of England’. Inside was a typed letter, written in 1915, from the Prime Minister’s senior economic adviser, George Paish, to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Reginald McKenna. In it, Paish points out that two passenger liners heading for the U.S. with substantial amounts of gold on board had recently been torpedoed. On the very same day each one had set sail, he notes, the Bank of England had announced sales of large quantities of ‘foreign gold coin’. It turned out that it was standard Bank of England practice to inform the financial markets of gold sales on the day that the gold was shipped out. Using this publicly available information, German intelligence could then see which ships of a certain size and class were leaving the UK that day and target them. Eventually, the Bank of England stopped broadcasting gold sales.

The researchers decided this was a line of investigation worth pursuing, even though officialdom had tried to cover up its losses.

"The government didn’t want the public to find out how much of their money had been lost at sea,’ says Will Carrier. ‘We have even found documents alluding to the destruction of other documents about gold shipments."

Over time a picture started to emerge thanks to fresh discoveries in long-forgotten archives. In one, they found an invaluable register of all the ships authorised to carry gold at a particular time. Will takes me through a typical case study from 1915. Bank ledgers show that on one particular day, more than £1 million in gold belonging to the French government was sold via the Bank of England to Morgan Grenfell in New York, along with £1 million more from the Midland Bank.

One liner designated as a gold carrier left Britain that day . . . and it was torpedoed 48 hours later.

The ship’s inventory shows a small cargo of fish, steel, palm oil, soap and a mysterious final item — ‘quarries’. Finally, there is an insurance claim for its unremarkable cargo. Forget the fish and soap, the ‘quarries’ were valued at an astonishing £1 billion in today’s money. Another example is a World War II liner that left Glasgow soon after the benighted City of Benares. It was promptly attacked a few days into the Atlantic voyage, though nearly all 300 people on board were quickly rescued. Again, the archives show a small cargo valued at £29,000. Yet the war insurance payout was a thumping £550,000 back in 1940. And that only covers gold owned by private institutions. The government never insured its own gold. And a secret Bank of England memo suggests the ship was also carrying £4.5 million of government gold.

All told, that ship alone could contain anywhere up to £500 million in gold at today’s prices.

Will Carrier says one ship has already been explored by a foreign salvage team which failed to find any gold in the bullion room. ‘We tracked down the intelligence officer on that voyage — he’s now very elderly and lives in Australia — and he told us that when they got the gold on board, they sealed it up in a completely different part of the ship.’

There are also four promising cases, courtesy of the descendants of a U-boat commander who kept precise notes of his victims. Despite the potentially huge prizes, treasure-hunting is an costly business. A typical salvage ship can cost £100,000 a day and, even in good weather, it might take weeks to locate and penetrate a strongroom. The maritime world is full of tales of botched attempts to raise the wealth of Midas from the deep. That is why a consortium has been formed, involving marine and financial experts to raise the initial £15 million.

Philip Reid, a former banker with Merrill Lynch and a former chief executive of the National Research Development Corporation, is chairman. Hedge funds and City backers, he says, are coming on board, though he also wants to appeal to ordinary investors via the Government’s Enterprise Investment Scheme. ‘I know the risks because I lost £5,000 in a quest for sunken treasure in the Caribbean some years ago,’ says Philip. ‘There was meant to be a great pot of gold and they never found a thing. This is completely different because we have solid intelligence.’

He explains that the first portion of any recovery will go to the British Government since, having paid out all insurance claims, it is the owner of the cargo. After covering the operation’s costs, the rest will be shared among investors, with a percentage going to charities. How much the taxpayer gets will depend on the Government. Five years ago, the Department of Transport received a mere 20 per cent of £48 million of silver bullion recovered from the merchant ship SS Gairsoppa which sunk off Ireland in 1942 — but that arrangement has since been described as a ‘procedural error’. A spokesman says there is a temporary moratorium on salvage contracts. None of which prevents the Britannia’s Gold salvage team from setting sail. Under international maritime law, the company merely has to inform the owner of anything it brings to the surface, then agree a salvage fee for doing so.

Will Carrier says: ‘We’ll keep them fully informed as a courtesy. This is a British operation and we don’t want someone else taking what is British gold.’ For their part, government officials are waiting to see what emerges. But I suspect there’s a lingering sense of embarrassment that they don’t know the whereabouts of so much gold. In 1981, ministers commissioned a salvage operation which retrieved gold worth £40 million from the destroyer HMS Edinburgh, even though this, too, was a war grave. The vessel went down in the Arctic in 1942. The gold was Russia’s payment for war debts. Whitehall knew all about this valuable cargo because it had been travelling in a warship. But details of shipments in merchant vessels seem to have vanished in the fog of war — until now. No doubt if Britannia’s Gold start hauling up armfuls of shiny ingots, the Chancellor will soon be on the phone to arrange a deal.

Perhaps, one day, the Government might even approve an attempt to salvage the secret cargo from the tragic City of Benares. Considering the number of young lives lost, how apt if there was enough money down there to build a children’s hospital.

Deep sea hunt for $7.9 billion of sunken British gold after decades missing

Sun, 19 Mar 2017 10:38:21 GMT

by Ander s | Stuff

Britannia’s Gold will launch a deep sea recovery operation in hopes of recovering nearly NZ$8 billion of missing gold.

Welcome to the treasure hunt of the century. In the deep waters off the Irish coast, there’s believed to be up to $8 billion in sunken British gold that has waited decades to be recovered. After 25 years of painstaking research, experts believe they know the final resting places of more than 700 British merchant ships that sank in WWI and WWII while carrying some £4.5 billion (NZ$7.9 billion) of gold. And the recovery organisers are offering the public a piece of the loot.

The gold was being shipped by the British government during the two wars to pay for weapons, food and other goods when the ships sank. About 7500 merchant ships were sunk during the two wars – some torpedoed by Nazi warships during WWII specifically because of their precious cargo. But much of the valuable treasure may soon be back on dry land, with a recovery mission about to begin in waters west of Ireland.

Private recovery organiser Britannia’s Gold believes it knows the location of 700 ships with large amounts of gold and precious metals on board. Its first target is a “cluster” of three ships believed to have carried £750 million of gold when they sank, The Telegraph reports.

The recovery operation, using underwater vehicles and robotic tools, is set to cost £15 million. Britannia’s Gold chairman Philip Reid said the British government – which owned the ships’ cargo – would get a portion of any gold recovered, with the rest shared among investors and charities. Members of the public could also “win” a bar of gold, just by signing up to the group’s newsletter.

Britannia’s Gold said it would treat all of the wrecks with respect and avoid ships that were carrying evacuee children.

“As a mark of respect, a commemorative plaque will be placed at each shipwreck location upon completion of the team’s operations.” – Stuff

Link to PDF version…

There’s £4.5 Billion Worth Of British Gold Under The Sea From WWI & WWII

Sun, 19 Mar 2017 10:36:41 GMT

by Anders | The Ladbible

During World War I and World War II, 7,500 British merchant ships were torpedoed and sunk.

More than 700 of these ships were official ‘Gold Carriers’. They were shipping cargoes of gold bullion across the globe to pay for munitions and supplies that the British government desperately needed for the armed forces, but also ordinary civilians at home who were struggling on rations. That means that at the bottom of the oceans there are vast quantities of British gold.

Research teams in the UK, the US, and Canada have spent the last 25 years looking for the British gold and they now know where it is. Using expert salvage technology, an organisation called Britannia’s Gold is planning to salvage the treasure at the bottom of the ocean.

How Much Gold Are We Talking?

It’s a huge amount of money. The British Government shipped gold bullion worldwide with an estimated present day value of circa £300bn. Most of these gold shipments were carried by the merchant fleet under government direction. Of the 7,500 ships lost, more than 700 were gold and silver carriers. During WWI, the Bank of England shipped gold worth £125bn and during WWII gold worth £175bn (at 2016 prices). These figures do not include other substantial shipments of precious metals, gems and gold owned or controlled by Joint Stock Banks. So we’re talking a lot of money. A serious amount of dollar. If Britannia’s Gold found even half of that, it would be amazing.

How Many Ships Can Be Salvaged?

While Britannia’s Gold has spent the last quarter of a century using state-of-the-art technology, and also going through 8,000 documents from various governmental agencies to find out about what was on each ship and where they were headed, it’s not that easy. Not all of the ships carrying gold will be salvaged.

For example, The City of Benares, an 11,000-ton British liner was hit by a German torpedo while carrying 262 evacuees including children, to Canada in 1940. It was a tragedy that people talked about for years; why had the Nazis targeted a vessel carrying civilians? But it was because the government was hiding gold in the ship, too. The team of Britannia’s Gold won’t touch the City of Benares, as it’s designated as a war grave and should be treated as such. It’s still a very sensitive subject.

Since 1914, all British warships that have sunk are classified as both war graves and sovereign territory, which means that they have to be treated with respect. And that no one can disturb them. However, most merchant wrecks have no such protection – and they’re the ones with the gold. So Britannia’s Gold will only look for the merchant ships.

How Easy Is It To Find These Ships?

Unlike the Spanish Armada, which sank full of gold and treasures, too, the merchant ships from the last century will still be intact which makes them much easier to find. The 15th century wooden ships have all but disintegrated. Steel takes much longer to fall apart, even under the powerful waves of the ocean.

But it was the painstaking research that was the real hard work. While in the Public Records Office, going through a box of mariners’ wills, one of the founding members of Britannia’s Gold found a folder had been filed in the wrong place. A scribbled, handwritten note on the front stated: “Publication of Gold Imports and Exports by the Bank of England.” Inside was a typed letter, written in 1915, from the Prime Minister’s senior economic adviser, George Paish, to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Reginald McKenna. Paish points out that two passenger liners heading for the U.S. with substantial amounts of gold on board, had recently been torpedoed. On the very same day each one had set sail, he notes, the Bank of England had announced sales of large quantities of ‘foreign gold coin’.

The Nazis were following the Bank of England’s announcements closely, and that’s how they figured out which ships were carrying gold in WWII. And that’s how Britannia’s Gold figured it out, too. Of course, the company had other avenues to follow. For example, a U-boat commander who kept precise notes of the ships he shot down and why – pretty gruesome and chilling stuff but useful to locate the ships. And there are still survivors from the torpedoed ships who remember where the gold was stashed.

Who Will Get The Gold?

Now for the important question! Once the gold is salvaged from the sea, who will it belong to? Legally, it still belongs to the British government, but of course there is a finder’s fee for Britannia’s Gold. It’s fair enough as it’s a risky business to look for gold on the bottom of the ocean and lots of people have lost thousands of pounds looking for treasure.

You can join Britannia’s Gold and help out with the quest to bring back the gold belonging to the UK. Also…they’re giving away one gold bar! Not too shabby.

Just think about what the government could do with that amount of cash! Spend it on the NHS, top up pensions, clear everyone’s student debt or even just give it to us as a gift. I could have done with a gold bar or two as well.

Words: Laura Hamilton

TheLADBible_BGL

Massive $5.6 Billion Treasure Hunt Is On For Sunken British Gold

Sun, 19 Mar 2017 10:33:58 GMT

Anna Golubova : KITCO

After more than two decades of searching, Britain might finally get some of its sunken WWI and WWII gold back, as Britannia’s Gold launches an operation to recover $5.6 billion worth of the yellow-metal that went missing after British ships were attacked by the Germans.

It is believed that the British government used ships to transport gold and other precious metals worth £300 billion ($372 billion) during First and Second World Wars to pay for military equipment. The sunken ships were specifically targeted by Germans in order to put extra financial pressure on the British Empire during the wars, Britannia’s Gold stated on its website.

It took scientists 25 years and eight million documents to create a database and track down 700 out of 7,500 of the sunken vessels.

“The documents provide substantive evidence as to which sunken ships carried the valuable cargoes,” the organization noted.

And now, in just a few weeks, Britannia’s Gold will launch an $18.6 million recovery operation that will be based a few hundred miles off the coast of western Ireland, The Telegraph reported. The first step in the recovery process will be to target a cluster of three ships, which are believed to have £750 million ($929 million) aboard. Once the fortune is recovered, a part of it will go to the British government and charities and the rest will be split between investors.

The public will also get a chance to get their hands on part of the treasure — you can win a bar of gold by signing up for the organization’s newsletter.

KITCO_BGL-article

Britannia’s Gold Chairman being interviewed on BBC Morning Radio Show

Sun, 19 Mar 2017 10:25:11 GMT