A plunder of 37 gold coins worth more than $1 million, stolen from the site of a famous 1715 shipwreck off the coast of Florida by the family that salvaged it, has been recovered after an investigation by authorities in the Sunshine State. Eric Schmitt, a member of the family, has now been charged in state court with selling stolen property.

A convoy of 11 ships in Spain’s colonial treasure fleet system, which transported gold and silver back to the Spanish crown from the Americas, sailed from the port of Havana, bound for Europe, on July 31, 1715. They carried on board an immense fortune of coins that had been minted in Lima, Peru, between 1697 and 1712, along with other precious metals. The convoy is now known as the 1715 fleet.

Shortly after they set sail, a catastrophic hurricane decimated the fleet, save for a lone French vessel that escaped unscathed. Salvage efforts to recover the ships from Davey Jones’s locker began in the 1960s, but much of the treasure remains at the bottom of the sea—giving Florida’s Treasure Coast its name.

A coin hoard found in a 1715 shipwreck off Florida’s Treasure Coast has been recovered after it was allegedly stolen from the shipwreck site. Courtesy of Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

In 2015, a family of treasure hunters gained fame when they discovered a hoard of. coins from one of the sunken ships, the Nuestra Señora de las Nieves. The family reported finding 51 gold coins but allegedly did not disclose another 50 coins. Schmitt has now been accused of illegally selling the artifacts between 2023 and 2024.

“It’s definitely a passion. You gotta want to do this,” Schmitt told CBS News when the coins were found. “Mostly what we find is garbage on a daily basis—beer cans and lead sinkers and bullets.”

The Schmitt family, through its business Booty Salvage, contracts with a company that holds exclusive salvage rights to the wrecks and would have to split the bounty 50-50 with 1715 Fleet Queens Jewels. Additionally, their finds are subject to laws that require, among apportions to other stakeholders, that 20 percent of the profits go to the state of Florida.

“This case underscores the importance of safeguarding Florida’s rich cultural heritage and holding accountable those who seek to profit from its exploitation,” said Camille Soverel, an investigator with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), in a statement announcing the recovery of the coins.

After new evidence of the theft emerged in June, FWC investigators, along with the FBI, executed multiple search warrants that recovered coins from private homes and safe deposit boxes. Authorities also reclaimed five stolen coins from a Florida-based auctioneer that had bought them from Schmitt, not knowing they had been stolen.

Investigators used advanced digital forensics to determine that a picture of the stolen coins was allegedly taken at the Schmitt family condominium in Fort Pierce and to link Eric Schmitt to the photograph.

Altogether, authorities recovered 37 of the 50 stolen coins, with 13 remaining missing. Three of them were discovered to have been placed by Schmitt on the ocean floor in 2016. The FWC said it remains committed to finding the remaining missing coins, which will be handed over to their “rightful custodians.”