BARCELONA (Commodity Online): Spain, struggling to tackle the recession and financial downturns, is finally banking on treasures buried under the ocean.

According to news reports, cash-strapped Spain has ordered its navy to look for huge gold reserves that were lost at sea in the 16th century.

Gold bullion and silver treasure worth £85billion — the size of the nation’s current budget shortfall — lies on the sea bed off the coast of southern Spain.

The Inca and Aztec loot is believed to be in heavily laden vessels which hit the bottom of the sea in bad weather as they returned to Cadiz from South America.

Naval mine sweepers are to begin radar and sonar surveys to try to locate the wrecks.

Meanwhile, American treasure-hunters have been ordered to handover an estimated £250 million worth of gold and silver coins salvaged from a Spanish shipwreck in Atlantic waters. The Spanish government has won a two-year legal battle against commercial marine archaeologist firm Odyssey, which Spain accused of plundering its national heritage.

The Florida-based Odyssey Marine Exploration recovered 17 tonnes of gold and silver from a sunken vessel they code-named the ‘Black Swan’ in March 2007. The Nasdaq-listed company refused to reveal the location of the wreck insisting that it had been found in international waters and therefore beyond the legal jurisdiction of any one country.

But when the record haul was announced Spain came to suspect the treasure had been looted from the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, a Spanish frigate laden with bullion from the Americas that sunk by the British off the coast of Portugal in October 1804.

Spain branded the Odyssey team ‘21st century pirates’ and sent its navy to intercept vessels owned by Odyssey as they explored the waters around Spain. They seized equipment and records but failed to find the salvaged coins which had already been secretly flown out to a warehouse in Tampa, Florida.

A Florida judge has ruled that the treasure found on what is assumed to be the wreck of the ‘Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes’, belongs back in Spain, and Odyssey has to give 500,000 gold and silver coins back to the Spanish government.

While wrecks of commercial vessels remain unaffected by the ruling, naval vessels like the ‘Nuestra Senora’ are deemed to be property of the originating sovereign state, even if they were on a commercial mission, as the Nuestra Senora possibly was when it sank.

Estimates put about 3,000 of these treasure laden shipwrecks at the bottom of the world’s oceans and the ruling is sure to stir up the waters.

Making the situation even more complicated, Peru is presently engaged in a battle to reclaim its cultural and historical heritage. It is also putting together a case, saying it has ‘sufficient reasonable indications’ of its right to reclaim the treasure, as it is made from Peruvian metals originally taken by the Spanish.

As the identity of many wrecks can be disputed, it is possible that exploration teams in future might be tempted to abandon any evidence that compromises their position.