Guest_Anonymous
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Betty brought this to our attention (thank you Betty!) So I thought I'd post the article here:
London [i:5e81cd79de]Times[/i:5e81cd79de], May 1 2004
BRITISH salvage experts have been secretly involved in an unauthorised mission to take priceless artefacts from the Titanic. The leaders of the rogue voyage, codenamed Bluelight, had close links to the company that holds a legal duty to prevent the vessel from being plundered by pirates, The Times has learnt.
The expedition to the world342200231s most famous shipwreck has provoked allegations of duplicity, illegality and chicanery on the high seas. A file of documents detailing the trip, which quietly left Hull 18 months ago and returned to Liverpool two months later, was delivered this week to an American federal court in Norfolk, Virginia. The papers reveal that the survey ship Northern Horizon braved the waters of the North Atlantic, where the Titanic lies 2302275 miles down, at a time of year normally considered too dangerous for operations.
Court documents reveal that on board were some of the world342200231s most experienced marine treasure hunters, equipped with an Abyssub (remote operated vehicle.
It had been fitted with robot arms capable of reaching for goods inside the first-class cargo hold, whose contents are worth hundreds of millions of pounds. Nobody knows what, if any, artefacts were retrieved but the story of intrigue behind the voyage is a tale worthy of the numerous legends surrounding 342200234the ship that couldn342200231t sink342200235.
In 1994 a company called RMS Titanic was given exclusive rights to retrieve goods from the liner and was the only salvage operator permitted to operate on the wreck. Its dives have recovered more than 6,000 items whose combined value is conservatively estimated at 30224340 million.
However the company342200231s profitability, to the frustration of its directors and major shareholders, has been hit by a court ruling that barred it from selling any of the items. The company could only make money by leasing the relics to exhibitions, but was under an obligation to make regular visits to the site.
In 1999, after boardroom coup by shareholders from the entertainment industry, the company tried to challenge the court decision. 342200234We all know there are billions of dollars down there under the water. It342200231s like sitting on a goldmine,342200235 said Joe Marsh, a former concert promoter who is the company342200231s major shareholder, in 1999.
After unsuccessfully fighting a series of legal battles for the right to sell its possessions, the board surprisingly passed a resolution in September 2002 under which it would have voluntarily surrendered its exclusive rights to the wreck. When the decision was announced publicly, it was expected to trigger a gold rush by competing salvage operators.
The first company to retrieve artefacts would be able to stake a claim to the exclusive salvage rights, unhindered by the prohibition against selling which had crippled RMS Titanic. This appears to have been the reason for the secret trip. However, in the event the mission appears to have been unsuccessful and ended in the seizure of their ship.
Bill Willard, an RMS Titanic shareholder who has compiled the dossier about the secret mission has now brought it to the attention of the American courts. He said: 342200234The timing of this rogue expedition is too coincidental with RMS Titanic342200231s . . . announcement that it planned to relinquish salvor-in-possession status.
342200234Had the court allowed the company to reliquish said status on that day, a group planned, staffed and financed by company insiders was on site . . . with the confirmed objective of recovering artefacts.342200235
But if this was the plan, it all went wrong when the US authorities told RMS Titanic that it had no right to give up its status as salvor-in-posession 342200224 which the court viewed as its main asset 342200224 without putting the decision to shareholders.
The meeting was never held, the rights were not surrendered and in December 2002 the Northern Horizon slipped unnoticed into Liverpool. Until today, the story of the rogue mission has never been told.
Arnie Geller, the $330,000-a-year president of RMS Titanic, has denied any involvement by his company in the expedition. He claimed this week to have spent 342200234tens of thousands of dollars342200235 in a vain attempt to establish whether it took place and who was involved.
342200234We were only made aware of it as a rumour, but we went to great extremes to verify whether or not it did take place. To our knowledge we found no proof that it did,342200235 he said. Mr Geller said he knew the names of only two people rumoured to have been involved and refused to say who they were. 342200234When I confronted them, they told me it wasn342200231t true,342200235 he said.
The president342200231s investigation somehow failed to discover that the leaders of the expediton were a Yorkshireman, Graham Jessop, a former salvage master of RMS Titanic, and Dik Barton, from Cumbria, a former British soldier who until May 2002 was the company342200231s vice president and director of operations. David Hill, who handled the mission342200231s financial planning, was until May 2002 the consultant in investor relations.
Mr Hill, a personal friend of Mr Geller, is a disbarred lawyer who was jailed for four months in 1985 after pleading guilty to money laundering.
The ship342200231s captain, Mr Goodyear, from Penistone, South Yorkshire, worked until April 2002 for a wholly-owned subsiduary of RMS Titanic. He told The Times this week that Mr Geller must have known about the expedition. Asked why he thought Mr Geller had claimed to have no knowledge of the trip, he said it was 342200234probably because he didn342200231t want to get himself into trouble342200235.
He said: 342200234If anyone, anywhere to do with the Titanic is on thin ice, it would be Arnie Geller.342200235 Mr Goodyear said that those involved in the 2002 voyage had received legal advice that they were doing nothing illegal.
According to the documents lodged with the court, a sailor who was part of the crew has claimed that 342200234we brought some good stuff up342200235, but one of the papers describes the mission as 342200234unfruitful342200235.
Mr Barton was unwilling to discuss what he described as 342200234a private, commercial event342200235 and Mr Jessop has not responded to requests for an interview. Mr Hill claimed ignorance of the expedition.
Resting undisturbed in the first-class cargo hold are the prized possessions of society342200231s Edwardian elite:
A unique early 20th century copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam known as the Great Omar and valued at more than 3022431 million. Encased in a carved oak basket and en route to a New York dealer, the book342200231s binding was encrusted with 1,050 jewels and finished in 100 sq ft of gold leaf. It took two years to make and the cover featured rubies, amethysts and emeralds.
A rumoured shipment of diamonds which was being carried by two brothers from Switzerland to New York, worth 302243170 million
A red, 25-horsepower 1912 Renault touring car which was being shipped home by Billy Carter, a wealthy Philadelphia socialite travelling with his wife, two children, a maid, a chauffeur and 24 polo sticks. He later made a $5,000 insurance claim for his lost car. An early Bugatti is also supposed to have been loaded in the hold
The ship342200231s safes, several purser342200231s bags and their contents. One, stuffed with cash and jewellery, was recovered on an earlier expedition and is now one of the Titanic exhibits
Seventy-six cases of champagne and 50 cases of wine. Some bottles have previously been recovered
Possibly an amount of gold and silver bullion in the specie room in the bow
Tiffany342200231s had a case of china, and silver and gold goods aboard.
The American Express Corporation loaded 25 cases of merchandise The contents of Captain Edward J. Smith342200231s cabin, complete with his bathtub.
And, according to RMS Titanic, the British Museum asked them to look out for a prototype helicopter which was on its way to America, and provided drawings to recognise it.[/i]
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