A scuba diver has been arrested after exiting the water from a dive in Mallorca, Spain, and charged with looting the remains of a 2,000 year-old Roman shipwreck.
The 39-year-old man, who has not been identified, was arrested on 22 May as he was leaving the water, still wearing his wetsuit and carrying a metal detector with a bag of loot tied around his waist.
The man’s nationality has not been widely reported, but German newspaper Bild has identified him as a German national living on Mallorca.
Among the items in his back were coins, an old screw and lead plates which are thought to have been taken from the ses Llumetes wreck, a first century-era Roman shipwreck located in Mallorca’s Porto Cristo harbour.
The wreck was discovered at a depth of 2 metres, around 30 m from shore, during construction in the harbour in the mid-1920s, and was excavated in 2015 by Spain’s Institut Balear d’Estudis en Arqueologia Maritima (IBEAM).
The 18-20 metre-long vessel, of which 9 metres are left intact, was carrying a cargo of amphoras and several oil lanterns, from which the shipwreck takes its name (‘ses Lumettes’ translates to English as ‘the Lights).
It is considered an important wreck as it represents a change in the design of ships during the rise of the Roman Empire; of particular note are rarely found timber marks in the wooden hull of the vessel, which are thought to provide clues as to the identity of the ship’s builder.
The Guardia Civil confiscated the loot and the diver’s metal detector and dive gear, and he has since been released on bail, charged with a crime against historical heritage.
The man has also apparently been fined for breaching local scuba diving regulations, although there’s no information as to which regulations he did not comply with.
It is the second time a German diver has been arrested for looting les Lumettes – in July 2023 a 52-year-old German man was arrested in almost identical circumstances – carrying a metal detector and a bag of loot, claiming he was ‘cleaning up the sea and doing something good’, and that he had found the bits of metal and ceramic from the shipwreck on the beach.
Public prosecutors were demanding the diver be imprisoned for two years, however, at the time of writing, we were unable to find any information as to the outcome of that trial.
The post Diver arrested for looting ancient shipwreck appeared first on DIVE Magazine.
