'Buried treasure' work halted over permits issue

Paul G. Turnquest -

The search for possible buried pirate treasure at Fortune Hill, San Salvador, came to a halt yesterday after government officials discovered that workers on the island did not have the proper permits to excavate anything from the ground.

Yesterday, a Ministry source told The Tribune that a stop order had to be issued immediately after aerial photographs were delivered to the Ministry of Culture identifying a tractor on the property cutting down an area in Fortune Hill.

Reportedly, when State Minister for Finance Zhivargo Laing recently travelled to San Salvador, permission had only been granted from the office of the Prime Minister for the use of "non-invasive sonar equipment" to be used at the site.

This equipment, it was said, was to be used to identify if anything was indeed buried inside the caverns underneath the hill. No permission, the government source said, was ever granted for the use of heavy equipment.

Such a permit, the source said, would have to come from the Department of Antiquities, Monuments, and Museums through a special excavation licence. However, the current title holders to the land in question, they said, do not have possession of such a licence.

Such a development will come as welcome news to at least two other claimants to the land who have been unanimous in their call for the government to intervene and stop the work at Fortune Hill.

Dennis Bethel and Vernay Gilbert have put forward arguments that they are the true owners of the land. Both claimants insist there is a surveying issue which the government must investigate before a "true owner" of the land can be decided.

Currently Dorothy Black-Beal is the only person the government has identified as having good title to the land.

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