Hedge fund exec funding hunts for treasures in shipwrecks

• A 43 year-old hedge fund exec was revealed as one of the world’s leading deep-sea treasure hunters.
•  For years he’s been funding missions and investing in high-tech tools to discover shipwrecks.
• Though not technically illegal, shipwreck hunters must register all their discoveries. 

A hedge fund executive has been unmasked as one of the world’s leading deep-sea shipwreck hunters after a Bloomberg Businessweek investigation uncovered his decades-long hunt for sunken treasure worth billions.

Anthony Clake, a 43-year-old executive at Marshall Wace in London, has not been going to the bottom of the ocean himself, however. He’s been investing in and directing high-tech operations to find lost treasures on the ocean floor.

Marshall Wace is one of the world’s biggest hedge funds, managing assets worth about $62 billion.

According to Bloomberg, Clake has quietly spearheaded treasure hunts using advanced underwater technology including million-dollar marine robots that can descend to depths of 6,000 meters, and a sonar system that creates 3D maps of the seabed.

The technology has allowed wealthy individuals like Clake to fund exploration of the seabeds.

Clake’s successes include the SS Coloradan, an American steamer sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of South Africa. Found by his contractors in 2016, the wreck contained drums of gold precipitate.

Another ship found at at depth of 4,500 meters off the coast of west Africa contained 50 tons of silver coins. The discovery was kept secret, the coins melted down and sold, and everyone involved had to sign an NDA, Bloomberg reported.

It isn’t clear how much money Clake has made from the salvaged treasure. But often the most lucrative wrecks draw competing claims, legal battles, and seizures.

In 2015, the San José, a Spanish galleon sunk off the Colombian coast, was discovered by a Clake-affiliated company. It contained bounty thought to be worth billions of dollars.

However, competing claims from another US treasure-hunting entity, as well as the Colombian government and a Bolivian indigenous group, have halted plans to recover items from the San José.

At times, in a move known as “wet storage,” Clake’s crews would sometimes leave their finds at a different location underwater to avoid such governmental interference, according to the report.

It’s unclear how much Clake has made from his treasure hunting.

“I don’t do it for a living,” Clake told Bloomberg in a brief interview. “I find it interesting to use technology to solve problems under the sea.”

Treasure hunting is not illegal, but under international law anyone who discovers a shipwreck must report their findings to authorities, per Law Info.

Under the US Abandoned Shipwrecked Act of 1987, all shipwrecks within US waters belong to the state.

Clake did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.