LONDON, UK (8 July 2002) -- Four British divers have finally agreed to return more than $150,000 worth of gold, silver, gems and jewelry after they deceived Italian authorities and illegally salvaged an Italian wreck. David Dixon, a marine consultant from Aylsham, Norfolk; Kerr Sinclair, a diver from Corton, near Lowestoft; Jerry Sullivan, a surveyor from Martlesham, near Ipswich; and Nicholas Pearson, a property developer from Great Yarmouth – received permission from Italian authorities to salvage the Glen Logan, a British merchant ship that was sunk by a German U-boat off the Isle of Elba in 1916. But instead of salvaging tin ingots from the Glen Logan, the treasure hunters chartered a salvage vessel for $185,000 and headed directly for the richer prize of the Pollux, an Italian steam packet that sank in the mid-19th century. The team worked for three weeks on the wreck and hauled in 311 French and Spanish gold coins, 2,000 silver coins, loose diamonds and jewelry from a depth of 91 meters (300 ft). After the salvage operation was completed, the divers managed to get their haul back to the UK but were arrested the day before they tried to auction it off. The Metropolitan Police Arts and Antiquities Unit seized the illegally salvaged items and issued a formal caution to the divers for 'Supplying the Receiver of Wreck with incorrect information about a salvage'. "Most of us had a background in commercial diving and thought this would be a way of potentially making a lot of money," Dixon told reporters. "We thought we had all the right permissions to salvage what we did but it is an incredibly complex area of the law and we ended up losing out." According to UK police, the items have been returned to Italy where they will be displayed in a museum on the Isle of Elba. Italian authorities may initiate criminal proceedings against the four. © CDNN - CYBER DIVER NEWS NETWORK | | Partners in crime: Grave robbers Leigh Bishop and Brad Sheard. Following the lead of dive industry-endorsed shipwreck looters Bishop and Sheard, scuba diving thieves around the world are destroying wrecks for bragging rights, coffee table displays and internet auction profits that amount to a fraction of the revenue shipwrecks can generate as fully protected underwater museums. FROM THE EDITORS OF CDNN Scuba looters around the world aggressively compete for bragging rights, product endorsements and profits from the sales of stolen artifacts that are now on a par with those from smuggling humans and drugs. "The vast majority of the global scuba diving community opposes shipwreck looting and underwater grave robbing," said CDS President Evan T. Allard. "For scuba divers, every shipwreck is an underwater museum to be fully protected for our children, our grandchildren and all future generations of divers who will dive deeper and longer thanks to ongoing improvements in diving technology ," Allard added. "It is absolutely imperative that the global scuba diving community, archaeologists, coast guards, police and tax authorities act now to prevent Leigh Bishop, Brad Sheard, David Morton (of the Boston Sea Rovers) and other shipwreck looters from exploiting and destroying sunken ships for their personal coffee table displays, internet self-promotion schemes, commercial 'museum' profits and tax-evasion scams." CYBER DIVER ALERT | If you have information pertaining to the theft and/or sale of wreck artifacts, or desecration of underwater grave sites by Leigh Bishop, Brad Sheard, organized crime gangs or anyone else, please contact CDNN immediately and your information will be passed along to appropriate authorities. REPORT SCUBA LOOTER |
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