Found off England? Spain 'suspicious' of Odyssey find

MADRID -- Authorities in Spain are looking into whether a U.S. company can be charged with stealing Spanish heritage for excavating colonial-era treasure from a sunken British warship.

Odyssey Marine Exploration said Friday it had discovered the ship —- along with gold and silver coins worth an estimated US$500 million (€371 million) —- somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean...

Spain's Culture Ministry said it thought the statement was "suspicious," after Odyssey had [previously] sought permission to explore Spanish waters for the wreck of a British ship, according to the national news agency Efe.

Spain granted the company permission in January to search for the HMS Sussex, which sank in a 1694 storm off Gibraltar while leading a British fleet into the Mediterranean Sea for war against France.

That permission was only for exploration, however, and did not extend to extraction, the ministry said, according to Efe. Odyssey had previously been searching off the Spanish coast, but suspended operations there in 2005 after complaints from the Spanish government.