Briton given permission to look for legendary treasure of Lima

Mike Munroe believes he has pinpointed the site where the hoard - rumoured to be worth £100 million - is buried.

He is convinced he can succeed where the likes of film star Errol Flynn and British racing driver Sir Malcolm Campbell have failed.

Mr Munroe has spent more than a decade pawing over battered maps and documents to pinpoint the exact site of the legendary hoard.

Now the 54-year-old, from Melton Mowbray, Leics, is putting the finishing touches to an expedition to unearth the treasure of gold, silver and jewellery which was hidden 190 years ago off the coast of Costa Rica.

The treasure was shipped out of the Peruvian capital of Lima during the last days of Spanish control in 1823.

An original inventory showed 113 gold religious statues, including a life size gold statue of the Virgin Mary, 200 chests of jewels, 273 swords with jewelled hilts, 1,000 diamonds, solid gold crowns,150 chalices and hundreds of gold and silver bars.

The Spanish loaded the treasure onto the ship Mary Dear, under the command of Captain William Thompson who set sail for Mexico, then still under Spanish control.

But Thompson turned pirate and killed the dignatories aboard, including a bishop. He then sailed to Cocos Island, 350 miles off Costa Rica, where he buried the loot.

Numerous expeditions have failed to uncover it, but Mr Munroe believes he knows the whereabouts. ...

"Since the 1930s, there have been at least 26 expeditions, but nobody has based a search on the soil and sand locations. I have the exact location of the treasure, which is backed up by descriptions of it being buried.

"I will use a special metal detecting mat, like a nylon mesh, which gives a three dimensional scan of the ground.

"If we locate an anomaly under the ground we use a little probe bar to see what it is."

"We have got to work in liaison with the Costa Rican government." ..

via Briton given permission to look for legendary treasure of Lima - Telegraph.