Bahamas Press: American Arrested for looting Spanish galleon.

[LM]

This guy just did everything wrong.

 

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[Au_Dreamers]

Naturally, they will do the right thing and throw those artifacts back into the ocean so they can be 'preserved' on the sea floor and returned to their status as "underwater cultural heritage".

No they can put them in a Museum so we can all see them, so they can be preserved for our children, children to see them.
Ossy

Now this is the internet so just to clarify- this is not a personal attack at you Ossy but when I read that I thought of....

Yeah just like the chest of silver coins Marx found in Port Royal that went to their Museum!

or


All that treasure the State of Florida has on display....

 

[mad4wrecks]

This story has nothing to do with Spain's claims to their abandoned shipwrecks or the pillaging of the Incas, or archaeologists vs treasure hunters or international salvage law. This is just another sad story about greed, about thievery and a person who thought they were above the law. They knew what they were doing and now they must face the consequences. It is also a black eye to all the honest professional shipwreck salvors out there and certainly doesn't help anyone's chances of getting a permit in the Bahamas.

 

[MORE AND BEYOND OSSY]

Naturally, they will do the right thing and throw those artifacts back into the ocean so they can be 'preserved' on the sea floor and returned to their status as "underwater cultural heritage".

No they can put them in a Museum so we can all see them, so they can be preserved for our children, children to see them.
Ossy

Now this is the internet so just to clarify- this is not a personal attack at you Ossy but when I read that I thought of....

Yeah just like the chest of silver coins Marx found in Port Royal that went to their Museum!

or


All that treasure the State of Florida has on display....

No offense taken AU Dreamers, But isn't the Thief a US Citizen, treasure Hunter !! Nothing to do with Spain just pure greed as Mad4wrecks mentioned.
the good news is the, booty will hopefully now be in a museum for all to see.
Ossy

 

[Au_Dreamers]

Naturally, they will do the right thing and throw those artifacts back into the ocean so they can be 'preserved' on the sea floor and returned to their status as "underwater cultural heritage".

No they can put them in a Museum so we can all see them, so they can be preserved for our children, children to see them.
Ossy

Now this is the internet so just to clarify- this is not a personal attack at you Ossy but when I read that I thought of....

Yeah just like the chest of silver coins Marx found in Port Royal that went to their Museum!

or


All that treasure the State of Florida has on display....

No offense taken AU Dreamers, But isn't the Thief a US Citizen, treasure Hunter !! Nothing to do with Spain just pure greed as Mad4wrecks mentioned.
the good news is the, booty will hopefully now be in a museum for all to see.
Ossy

Alleged- thief...

I’m not sure to your point of "But isn't the Thief a US Citizen, treasure Hunter!!" –noting odd capitalization.
But I have no idea what his citizen status is. For all I know when he legally changed his name he also became a citizen of the Bahamas.

My reply if you don't know is that after Marx turned over the chest of coins to the Govt. of Jamaica, the coins disappeared. The chest is still there.

Also treasures collected by the state of Florida have disappeared.

So it would seem that greed does also affect archaeologists, museum curators and staff as well as Govt. officials.

 

[MORE AND BEYOND OSSY]

Your right, We will have to keep an eye on eBay for some deals
Ossy

 

[FISHEYE]

Allen Gardner actually did a few good things as a treasure hunter before he turned into a pirate.He worked the jupiter wreck with bob marx and peter leo and steve singer,replaced a anchor on the copenhagen and a few other things.He also worked with clive cussler.Heres some links that i dug up on the net.Not much info about the looting in the bahamas so i looked up his ship.
R/V ELLA WARLEY III, ENDEAVORS ASSOC INC.

http://www.yachtcouncil.com/boating-stories/Shipwrecks

http://www.atochatreasures.com/TreasureQuest/Jupiter Wreck Project.htm

http://www.care2.com/c2c/groups/disc.html?gpp=20526&pst=1063694

http://www.nopc.info/forum/showpost.php?p=882847&postcount=3

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/19...60066_1_scuba-diver-copenhagen-shipwreck-site

http://www.numa.net/

 

[jeff08xx]

Gold will make a man do many things...he was like a drug addict getting his fix...always showing up in his wetsuit...getting his little package and leaving to enjoy it alone in the privacy of his home....It just got out of hand...U gotta laugh at the guy but also feel some compassion for him....I say let him off...Lindsay Lohan has done much worse...did he run over or kill anyone? We divvy up the loot, give him an equal share and part company...

 

[piper06w]

This is an ancient necro, but I'm incredibly curious if anyone knows a followup for this story.

 

[Whitt]

I suspect he can't be doing too bad as he arrested the wreck of the Ella Warley off the coast of NJ last year. I am very suspect of the whole affair.

 

[Whitt]

You have to ask yourself, why would someone arrest a wreck they finished working decades ago? The only thing that makes sense to me would be either:
1. New research revealed additional potential (unlikely)
2. You have ill gotten gains from another wreck that you need to "launder" through a legitimate wreck
Makes you wonder...

 

[pvet7521]

Alan Gardner did find some gold coins on the. NJ wreck site back in the 80s, there's a story to that also. He alegedly didn't include his partners/ investors in the division of the treasure .only hearsay .

 

[Jolly Mon]

That is the longest sentence I have ever seen, bravo!

I'm thinking if you're living in the Bahamas and planning to pirate a wreck, wouldn't you choose something a little lower key than the Maravillas?

I realize this is an old thread, but I was not a member of Tnet when it originated and missed hearing about the story in the popular press at the time. I think it is potentially a bombshell.

The assumption is that the shipwreck in question was the Maravillas.

Maybe it wasn't...

There are other possibly other Spanish wrecks in the vicinity...

 

[Jolly Mon]

This is an ancient necro, but I'm incredibly curious if anyone knows a followup for this story.

Thanks for reviving this thread !!!

I would love a follow-up myself !!!

 

[piper06w]

You have to ask yourself, why would someone arrest a wreck they finished working decades ago? The only thing that makes sense to me would be either:
1. New research revealed additional potential (unlikely)
2. You have ill gotten gains from another wreck that you need to "launder" through a legitimate wreck
Makes you wonder...

Or he's nearing 70 and realizing that he won't have much time left to dive his wreck with his old buddies. I guess I'll lay it out, I know Allen Gardner, and I'm fairly certain that the article in the OP has him mixed up with someone else. Like... That's his Ellawarley, and he lives in Freeport, but his house in Florida was sold, not seized, and on top of that he still owns a house in Florida and regularly travels there, so the whole SEC part of this is certainly not him.

It seems like good old Bahamian journalism put two men with the same name together, they arrested an Alex Gardiner who changed his name to Alan Gardner who was on the run in Florida, but pointed everything to Allen Gardner. The whole piece has me quite confused.

 

[Whitt]

Whose boat that they confiscated was named the Ella Warley? Really? C'mon. By the way, if I was diving a wreck finding gold coins, the only way I'm stopping is when I'm sure I have recovered all of them. A 20+ year hiatus? No way!

 

[piper06w]

But here's the thing... the Ella Warley III isn't confiscated. That was the boat he was using to dive on Ella Warley this past summer, and is still quite in his possession.

 

[Whitt]

There is definitely some tom foolery afoot. I'm always very skeptical, I can't help it. Again, I can't fathom why he would go back and arrest the Ella Warley after all these years...

 

[Whitt]

I'm sure Alan is a smart man (despite being from the area I have never met him). I'm hoping he did his research before he spent the time and money to arrest the wreck. If he did, then he would know the Adams Express Co. safe had been recovered not long after the sinking. I have dove the wreck myself, a couple of years ago before it was arrested. There isn't much exposed other than the paddle-wheel shaft. Pretty much everything else is burried and conglomerated. It is a dredging wreck for sure. There is some speculation that the wreck is in two pieces relatively close to each other.

 

[Jolly Mon]

This story just seems to have died after the initial report. My guess is Mr. "Gardiner" walked. You have to wonder if the gears of Bahamian justice might have been "greased" with shipwreck loot.

I did find a little more information from a site called TSEATC.com. I cannot vouch for its accuracy and I don't know where the information originated:

[More info from a source in the Bahamas close to Minister Pratt:

The arrest suspect "Alex Gardiner" and "Alan Gardner" are one and the same person the later having legally altered his name to "Alexander Gardiner" after moving to the Bahamas following SEC problems in US 12 years ago in a case involving allegations of insider stock trading resulting in alledged swindled millions from investors. A subsequent 75 million dollar Federal Court Judgement levied against Mr. Gardner still remains uncollected and the suspect still faces legal problems over that case and with swindled investors should he ever return to the US. The suspect's waterfront Palm Beach mansion was seized years ago and he was said to have fled the US in the middle of the night by boat to the Bahamas taking millions with him just ahead of the court decisions. Interestingly, The Hillary Clinton made infamous Rose Law Firm of Arkansas, as a representative of legal work performed on behalf of the suspect in carrying out his swindles, also had some defensive role in the SEC case.

Currently, according to same source in Bahamas, as of yesterday the suspect was being held without bail in a jail at Nassau and his vessel, Ella Warley III---now registered as a Bahamian vessel, three aircraft and a home in Freeport have been seized as evidence in a case now said to involve Interpol, US Customs and Bahamian officials. Individuals both in the Bahamas and the US are said to be under investigation to trace artifacts known to have been smuggled out of the country and sold. The suspect's Banking, Internet and phone records have also been seized.

Source said that the suspect had been under surveillance for over a year as the case was being built and authorities watched and waited until he was again found in the act of removing more items from the wreck until springing a capture. According to same source: Valuable pieces of Spanish jewelry and gems were subsequently found on the boat and were confiscated as evidence by agents on jet skis acting as tourists who suddenly raced up and boarded the vessel with drawn weapons taking the suspect by complete surprise before he could react and toss anything.

More artifacts, coins and jewelry from the 1656 Maravillas wreck were seized from the Freeport house as evidence.]