The UK abandons a planned operation to recover treasure worth about £5.5 billion from a Royal Navy shipwreck near Gibraltar. Multiple reports say ministers decide against carrying out the salvage after concerns that the move could upset Spain.
The outlets cite leaked cables from the early 2000s that describe how officials reassess the plan and ultimately scrap it. The shipwreck is described in the reporting as a Royal Navy warship understood to be HMS Sussex. While the reports focus on the Spain-related diplomatic risk as the reason for stopping the effort, they describe the same core sequence: the UK considers a recovery operation and then withdraws from it.
