Treasure hunters lose claim to $500m fortune

A 17-tonne trove of silver coins recovered from a Spanish galleon that was sunk off Portugal in 1804 was flown from the US to Spain yesterday, concluding almost five years of legal struggling.

Spain has gone ahead with efforts to move the treasure, despite a last-ditch, longshot claim to the find by Peru.

On Thursday, the Peruvian government made an emergency appeal to the US supreme court seeking to block transfer of the treasure, to give the nation more time to make arguments in federal court about its claim to being the rightful owner.