Treasure Hunter: I Found $3B Shipwreck

Treasure hunter Greg Brooks thinks he's hit pay dirt—or pay ocean, as the case may be. Brooks and his colleagues at the Maine-based Sub Sea Research say they've discovered the remains of a British merchant ship that was sunk by German U-boats off Cape Cod during World War II—and which they believe is laden with $3 billion worth of platinum, the AP reports. The hunters intend to recover the loot using a remote-controlled robot.

The wreck is 50 miles offshore and 700 feet down. "I'm going to get it, one way or another, even if I have to lift the ship out of the water," Brooks says. But the British government says it doubts the ship has platinum, and that if it did, who owned it would be a thorny legal question. An undersea archaeologist also pooh-poohs the claim, saying that an American company and a British company already plundered the wreck years ago. (More shipwreck stories.)