More than 61 tons of silver was recovered from a shipwreck this month nearly three miles beneath the ocean's surface. The pricey find, worth about $36 million, is a world record setter.
"This is the heaviest amount of precious cargo ever recovered from the deepest depth," Odyssey's president Mark Gordon told "Squawk on the Street" on Monday.
A 412-foot, steel-hulled British cargo ship, the SS Gairsoppa, was carrying the precious cargo from India to the United Kingdom in 1941 when the ship was torpedoed by Nazis about 300 miles off the coast of Ireland.
The shipwreck went untouched until 2011 when American deep-sea explorers from the shipwreck excavation company Odyssey Marine Exploration, discovered the wreck and prepared to recover the loot.
"This was an extremely complex recovery, which was complicated by the sheer size and structure of the SS Gairsoppa," Greg Stemm, the company's chief executive officer said according to the New York Daily News.
The team worked from the Seabed Worker, a 291-foot ship. From the home base, they remotely controlled marine vehicles that can dive to the three mile depth. Each silver bar weighs about 60 pounds individually, so the recovery was a daunting task that involved precise and powerful tools.
"To add to the complications, the remaining insured silver was stored in a small compartment that was very difficult to access," Stemm said.
"It's obviously a high-risk venture." Gordon said. "We invest millions of dollars on the front end before we know that we're going to have a success." The Odyssey crew recovered 2,792 silver bars from the wreckage, which is more than 99 percent of the insured silver reported to be on the ship when it sank. The treasure was transported to the United Kingdom. The Odyssey must split the proceeds with the U.K. government. The U.K. Department for Transport will let the group keep 80 percent of the findings. The Odyssey plans to invest the findings in future projects
"This is our fourth or fifth success," Gordon said. "This is what we do."
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