DETOURS

Adam Monahan:

It was a dark and foggy night in 1746 when sailors aboard a French East India company frigate unknowingly steered their ship into a cove surrounded by tall cliffs. With the fog they couldn't see until it was too late. The ship hit the rocks and sank. The Prince de Conty was only maybe an hour's sail from her home port on the south coast of France. The water was less than 50 feet deep, but the fog and the cliffs hampered any rescue efforts.

Michel L’Hour:

If you have a look on the site, you will see that it's like a cove surrounded by cliffs, and it's exposed to storm and very big waves of the west.

Adam Monahan:

Of the ship's 229 hands, only 45 survived the wreck. More than 200 years later, a team of divers got a contract with the French government to survey the wreck. Instead, they looted the ship making off with shards of porcelain and bars of solid gold. One day in 1999, according to the French government, some of those gold ingots were brought to our show.

Becky McGuire:

Typically of Chinese gold, they are 18 carat or pure.

Soundbite from the show:

Oh, yes.

Becky McGuire:

I think-

Soundbite from the show:

That's why they kept so well when they were not-

Becky McGuire:

Exactly. The seawater will not hurt them at all.

Adam Monahan:

The ingots are small and rectangular, maybe half an inch tall and very easy to hold in your hand. Each weighs about a pound and has Chinese characters pressed into the top. What we didn't know at the time is that a French underwater archeologist had been chasing those ingots for decades, all the way on to our show.

Shipwrecks and trade. Gold and porcelain. You might think you're in a blockbuster pirate movie, but alas, I am Adam Monahan, a producer with GBH's Antiques Road Show, and this is Detours. Today, All That Glitters.

The Prince de Conty sailed only once before it sank. It was part of a golden age of shipping trade between Europe and Asia that started in the 17th century.

Dr. Felicia Gottman:

So the China trade was particularly exciting for the Europeans because they could get goods that they couldn't get anywhere else in the world and that they couldn't make themselves, especially tea and porcelain.

Adam Monahan:

That's Dr. Felicia Gottman.

Dr. Felicia Gottman:

I'm a historian of Europe's early modern global trade, and I look in particular at the various European East India companies, including the French one.

Adam Monahan:

If you're a fan of a certain pirate movie franchise, you've probably heard of the British and Dutch East India companies, but they weren't the only Europeans sailing and trading with Asia at this time.

Dr. Felicia Gottman:

The Portuguese were the first to trade there. The Dutch founded their own rival East India company, captured a lot of the Portuguese ones. And then later in the 17th century, loads of other countries started to set up their own East India companies to trade between their home country and China.

Adam Monahan:

All these East India companies were separate, and for most of their histories, they were fighting with one another. It was a long journey from Europe to ports in India and China and a very long way back.

Dr. Felicia Gottman:

So it took at least a year to get there, and then you'd stay there for the whole trading season and it would take you usually about a year to get back. If you missed the monsoon, it would take you longer.

Adam Monahan:

The journey was really dangerous. Mainly because diseases spread very easily on ships and at crowded ports, but also because rival companies might try to board your ship and steal your trade goods. And yet with all those dangers, shipwrecks like the Prince de Conty are actually pretty rare.

Dr. Felicia Gottman:

So loads and loads of ships, not that many shipwrecks. If you were having a shipwreck, it was usually close to the shore where the got dangerous reefs and all these kind of winds and other dangers. Where on plain sea, that wasn't the biggest danger.

Adam Monahan:

The Prince de Conty was at the end of her maiden voyage when she sank.

Michel L’Hour:

What we know about the history of the-

Sam Farrell:

What we know about the history of the Prince de Conty was that she was built in 1743 in L'Orient for the French East India company, and she was sent to China in 1745.

Adam Monahan:

That's Michel L'Hour.

Sam Farrell:

My name is Michel L'Hour. I have been an underwater archeologist for the past 42 years.

Adam Monahan:

Michel spoke to us in French and English, and for this episode, my friend and colleague Sam Farrell, will serve as voiceover for information learned during the interview. A according to Michel, the Prince de Conty had a rather eventful trip.

Michel L’Hour:

It was sent to China, where it bought-

Sam Farrell:

The ship was sent to China where they bought lots of Chinese porcelain and a cargo of tea. So after this trip, which was a very, very long trip, in fact 20,000 kilometers, it was sent back to L'Orient. But for the return trip, they went by Brazil because that was the best way to come back to France. To go around the coast of what is presently South Africa and then to Brazil to take the winds, the Alizé to come back to France.

Adam Monahan:

The Alizé are the trade winds that blow across the Atlantic Ocean. They're what aided trade during this time.

Michel L’Hour:

So in Brazil-

Sam Farrell:

And so in Brazil, they made a call where they bought some wood.

Adam Monahan:

On her way back from Brazil, the Prince de Conty was set upon by an English privateer. During the fight, the captain of the ship was shot and lost his legs.

Michel L’Hour:

So it was very difficult for-

Sam Farrell:

So it was very difficult for him to continue to be the captain, but he did. They arrived very close to L'Orient, less than two hours sail for a ship like this one. There was a very, very strong fog, and when they arrived close to the island of Belle-île-en-Mer, they entered exactly at the center of the cove. And due to the fog, they probably saw the cliff at the last moment and for a ship of 45 meters, it was impossible to turn. And so the ship hit the cliff directly and probably sank very rapidly due to the bad weather and big waves.

Adam Monahan:

When it sank, the Prince de Conty was loaded down with tea, lumber, textiles, porcelain, and spices, all pretty common things for a ship to have on a return voyage. The gold ingots from East Asia, were unusual.

Dr. Felicia Gottman:

I'm less familiar with finding gold bars. Quite surprised because normally you brought the treasure out and the ships were loaded with what they called treasure at the time, so loads of silver, especially because in China they weren't massively interested in any of the goods the Europeans could produce, so they just wanted money. But usually they then spend all of that to buy goods.

Adam Monahan:

We don't really know why the Prince de Conty was hauling a cargo of gold bars all the way from China, about a thousand of them total, but Felicia suspects it might have been funding for warfare. European countries were always fighting with each other at this time. In any case, the French East India company wanted all their stuff back. So a year after the wreck, they staged a salvage operation.

Sam Farrell:

That winter, there were many storms and the ship was destroyed. The wreck was severely agitated at the bottom of the ocean. For several months, the French East India company made English prisoners recover any possible remains from the shipwreck.

Adam Monahan:

They actually did this with a diving bell, which is exactly what you might picture, a giant heavy metal bell, which could be lowered down to the ocean floor with a person underneath breathing the air that's trapped inside.

Sam Farrell:

And each time they worked to recover the cargo, they also contributed to destroying the shipwreck.

Adam Monahan:

Even with the diving bell, the company was not able to recover much, and after their efforts, the ship stayed on the bottom of the cove at Belle-île-en-Mer off the coast of Brittany in France, mostly untouched for more than 200 years. Then in the 1970s, a team got a permit to dive on the wreck. They were meant to survey and study the area and not move or take anything, but they took advantage of the contract and took some of the sunken gold.

Sam Farrell:

In fact, that day they told me they lost their minds when they found the gold. Someone started looting. The second one said, "If you take some, I'm taking some too." Which had a ripple effect.

Adam Monahan:

We'll get into the looting, the gold, the recovery, and what part Roadshow plays in all this after the break.

In 1974, a team of divers was awarded a permit to dive and survey the Prince de Conty wreck. By 1976, they had looted about a hundred of the roughly 1000 gold ingots that were in and around the wreck. It was the first time a group that had a legal right to dive the wreck took advantage of it in this way.

Sam Farrell:

This is the first time that a team of French archeologists started looting the site where they were studying. So for everyone it was a cursed shipwreck. The looter said to me, "It's a pity that no one returned. You should take an interest in the shipwreck."

Adam Monahan:

When Michel started as an underwater archeologist in the '80s, he was pretty quickly assigned to the Prince de Conty. At the time, a few of the looters were standing trial.

Sam Farrell:

In 1983, I was called before the court to represent the French government in the case against the 1976 looters.

Adam Monahan:

When Michel had gone to Belle-île-en-Mer, a lot of the locals told him about the looting. They knew what had happened, and later after the trial, the looters told him a lot about the wreck itself.

Sam Farrell:

I spoke to them and they told me about a number of things that they had seen on the shipwreck telling me that they regretted looting the shipwreck. Those in this trial told me that they thought the site was an important one.

Adam Monahan:

The looters may have lost their minds at the sight of the gold, but they still recognized that the Prince de Conty wreck was historically important.

Sam Farrell:

And this is what propelled me to propose to the French government to resume the assessment of the ship. In 1985 with a team of archeologists, we resumed the study that had been interrupted with the looting of 1976.

Adam Monahan:

In France, a shipwreck in territorial waters is considered the cultural property of the people of France. While it can be legal to dive on the wrecks, all artifacts must be left where they are. France no longer awards private citizens or companies contracts to do official dives on historic wrecks. It's done by government employees or at least in cooperation with government employees. In the years since Michel was assigned to the wreck, he has continued the investigation and done several dives on the Prince de Conty to see how it was doing. And Michel said for some of those dives, one of the looters was part of the team.

Michel L’Hour:

And during this discussion, many, many times-

Sam Farrell:

So during this discussion, many, many times I tried to get more information about the looting of 1976.

Adam Monahan:

Michel gathered information and context over the years, and eventually in 2017, one of his contacts let him know that some ingots that looked like they were from the Prince de Conty were up for sale on an auction site. Among the documentation proving provenance was an appraisal done on GBH's Antiques Roadshow in 1999.

Becky McGuire:

The story of how you and your husband came to own these wonderful objects you brought in today is maybe one of the most unusual we've ever heard at the Antiques Roadshow.

Adam Monahan:

The woman is sitting at a table at the roadshow event in Tampa, Florida with appraiser Becky McGuire. On the table are two gold ingots and several shards of porcelain. Every outfit in the background makes it very clear this is the '90s.

Soundbite from the show:

That's probably what everybody's dreaming about.

Becky McGuire:

Yes.

Soundbite from the show:

Is where.

Becky McGuire:

Tell us.

Soundbite from the show:

So we were living on a boat and diving a lot, and we dove in Cape Verde Island as we usually did, and we found first the porcelain. So we took pictures of them and we went back. When there's a wreck like that, you know there's a wreck somewhere, so you just go around and have a look. And we eventually found the gold.

Adam Monahan:

Now on our show, the guests said they came from a wreck off the Cape Verde Islands in West Africa, close to present day Senegal.

Becky McGuire:

And this is the Cape Verde Islands, you say-

Soundbite from the show:

Yes.

Becky McGuire:

... off the coast of Africa?

Soundbite from the show:

Yes.

Becky McGuire:

Right. Oh, it's just wonderful.

Adam Monahan:

So in other words, not the Prince de Conty off the coast in France.

Does that make any sense to you?

Dr. Felicia Gottman:

It could have. The Cape Verdes were a stopping point for a lot of East India company ships because they obviously had this very, very long journey and the ships had to be provisioned, so they had to stop to take on fresh water, fresh food, so that not everyone died of scurvy and disease. And the Cape Verde Islands were quite a good one. So a lot of ships did stop there.

Adam Monahan:

And there is a wreck of similar age off Cape Verde. But there are a couple of things that make me sure that the gold didn't come from that wreck. The first.

Michel L’Hour:

Yeah, but when I mentioned-

Sam Farrell:

When I mentioned the French East Indiaman, which was lost in Cape Verde, she was going to China.

Adam Monahan:

Meaning the shipwreck off Cape Verde wouldn't have Chinese gold like the ingots on it because it was on its way to China when it sank. Not coming from China.

Michel L’Hour:

No. No. No gold at the time.

Adam Monahan:

Michel's other evidence is a photograph.

Becky McGuire:

And here I want to show everybody this fabulous photograph you took of these very objects lying on the seabed next to a starfish showing really-

Adam Monahan:

And specifically a starfish. How did you know it was from the Prince de Conty?

Michel L’Hour:

I asked people to make the study-

Sam Farrell:

I asked someone to study the fauna that one can see in the photo. And they told me that this kind of fauna, the starfish, is usual along the Atlantic coast between 5 and 10 or 12 meters, no deeper. And the lady was saying that she found the gold ingots in 40 meters of water.

Adam Monahan:

The water at the wreck at Cape Verde was too deep for the starfish in the picture to be living there. The water at the Prince de Conty, however, is the perfect depth for that starfish to live. Plus, according to him, Michel had been given that exact same photograph by a contact at a photo development business back in the mid '90s. Michel said that the photo shop that had developed the pictures from the wreck gave the images to him, but he didn't want to get them in trouble for giving away customer's photos. So he just held onto the picture for years. By 2017, he felt it was safe to share the image and he knew where the gold bars were.

Michel L’Hour:

So when I was looking at the show-

Sam Farrell:

So when I was looking at the show, I saw the lady speaking and showing the picture. It was exactly the same. That was the picture I had.

Adam Monahan:

Remember, Michel didn't even know about our appraisal until these same ingots came up for auction in 2017. By that time, they had already changed hands once, and so the person who was selling the ingots was not the guest from our show and had nothing to do with the looting. But still, Michel reached out to his superiors with his evidence and they reached out to the United States.

Dave Keller:

My name is Dave Keller. I'm a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations, which is under the Department of Homeland Security.

Adam Monahan:

We spoke to Agent Keller when we were in California. He was part of the investigation because the auction house that listed the ingots is also in California.

And why would you be here today?

Dave Keller:

I was asked to come here today because of an investigation I conducted, which resulted in the repatriation of stolen artifacts. In the late '90s the artifacts were actually on the Antiques Road Show.

Adam Monahan:

Agent Keller worked with Michel and his colleagues in France to repatriate the gold ingots.

Dave Keller:

We approached the auction site with the subpoena. We explained to them what was going on and asked for their cooperation. We can usually do this because most auction sites, this is a reputable auction site that does not want bad business. Nobody wants to sell stolen property or have it in their collections. And they complied with all of our requests. They provided everything that we had asked for as far as documentation, and then we took the ingots and the pieces of pottery into custody and then went through the forfeiture process to ultimately turn over the ingots back to the French government.

Adam Monahan:

And that video of our appraisal has become evidence in the investigation, the same investigation that stretched all the way back to the looting in the 1970s.

Dave Keller:

So there was a lot of tight connections between the individual on Antiques Road Show, the items themselves, the photograph that she had on the show that were a lot of clues to the claim from the French government, that these actually came from that particular wreck.

Adam Monahan:

According to Michel, the guest from our show is the sister-in-law of one of the looters. As far as he knows, she wasn't onsite at the wreck or part of the dive. We tried to get in touch with her, but the contact information she provided in 1999 doesn't reach her today. This is an ongoing investigation. Michel plans to keep up with it even though he's retired now. These particular ingots were successfully repatriated to France where they now live in a museum in Brittany, not far from where the wreckage of the Prince de Conty sits on the ocean floor.

How happy are you to see these ones return to France and they're going to be an exhibition alongside your own?

Michel L’Hour:

In fact, I'm really happy because it's a very long inquiry, but I have no reason against the looter. I have the law. In fact, I'm not happy. I did just my job and I wanted to protect this underwater wreckage. It is not mine. Not yours. That the heritage of humanity. I prefer for far to work as underwater archeologist to act as a policeman. But we are only a few in the world to be in the center of this network of traffic, so it's why I continue for this find.

Adam Monahan:

Michel suspects most of the 100 ingots that were looted from the Prince de Conty wreck in the 1970s were melted down and sold or hidden away. They continue to look for more looters and more ingots and are even in the process of repatriating an ingot that was sold to the British Museum. And as for why looted ingots may have shown up on our show more than 20 years after they were taken off the bottom of the ocean, it may be that the looters thought enough time had passed. Or it may have been that they needed the appraisal to prove provenance to get more money for the ingots. We may never know.

Adam Monahan:

Detours is a production of GBH in Boston and PRX. This episode was written and produced by Jennifer Weingart. Our assistant producer is Sara Horatius. Mix and sound design by Jack Pombriant and our senior producer is Ian Coss. Interpretation and translation in this episode was provided by Dania Suleman. Jocelyn Gonzalez is the director of PRX Productions. Devin Maverick Robbins is the managing producer of podcast for GBH. And Marsha Bemko is executive producer of Detours. I'm your host and co-executive producer, Adam Monahan. Our theme music is Once in a Century Storm by Will Dailey from the album National Throat. Thank you all for listening. Have a good one.