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American couple among five facing trial over stolen gold from French shipwreck
Investigators believe the couple had taken possession of at least 23 gold bars
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Two Americans and three French nationals are set to stand trial in May 2027 over the alleged resale of gold bars stolen from a historic French shipwreck.
The couple, Eleonor (known as Gay) and Philip Courter, aged 82 and 84, will appear before the criminal court in Brest.
Alongside them, three French nationals are set to appear: Breton couple Yves and Brigitte Gladu, aged 79 and 76 respectively, and Annette May Pesty, 80, (who is the couple's sister-in-law) according to Le Figaro.
The five are suspected of involvement in the resale of gold bars stolen from the Prince de Conty, a French East India Company ship that sank off Belle-Île-en-Mer, in Brittany, on December 3, 1746.
All five face charges of criminal conspiracy, while some are also accused of handling stolen goods and money laundering, Brest prosecutor Stéphane Kellenberger told AFP.
The investigation began in 2018, when Michel L’Hour, then director of the Département des recherches archéologiques subaquatiques et sous-marines (Drassm), France's department of underwater archaeological research, alerted authorities of the suspected sale of five gold bars on a US-based auction website.
The five gold bars, engraved with Chinese characters, were seized by US Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in San Francisco in January 2018 after being smuggled into the US, according to an ICE statement.
They were officially returned to France in 2022.
Gay Courter, an American writer and documentary producer, who lives in Florida, was identified as the seller of five bars.
During an American television programme, Antiques Roadshow, in 1999, Annette May Pesty said she had found the gold bars while diving with her husband near the Cape Verde Islands.
However, investigators turned their attention to her brother-in-law, Yves Gladu, a professional underwater photographer who had previously been suspected of involvement in a looting of the wreck.
In May 2022, Mr Gladu said he had dived on the wreck around 40 times between 1976 and 1999 and recovered 16 gold bars. However, he said he sold them to a former serviceman living in Switzerland in 2006 and did not give any to the American couple.
The American couple were ultimately arrested in England in June 2022 and placed under house arrest in Southampton.
During questioning, they said they had sold 18 gold bars for more than $192,000 (€172,000), including through eBay, according to AFP.
Investigators believe the couple had possessed at least 23 bars, while three bars were reportedly sold to the British Museum in London.
Shipwreck was looted in the 1970s
The Prince de Conty sank during a storm and heavy fog while returning from China, carrying porcelain, tea, silk and gold.
The wreck was rediscovered in 1974 and was looted for the first time the following year, leading to an earlier court case in which five people were convicted in 1983.
The full extent of the gold recovered from the wreck remains unknown.
The American couple’s lawyer, Grégory Lévy, told AFP that he intended to seek their acquittal and criticised the decision to proceed with the trial because of the defendants' advanced ages.
