A sunken treasure’s destiny should have been settled in the high seas. Instead, it was long disputed in courtrooms.

In 2024, after a bitter legal battle, the U.K. Supreme Court (UKSC) finally awarded the Republic of South Africa the rights to a World War II-era shipwreck, colloquially known as the “Indian Titanic,” and its treasure trove of silver bullion worth an estimated $43 million.

The decision concluded a messy fight between South Africa and Argentum Exploration Ltd., a marine salvage company, over the sunken vessel that has captivated maritime treasure hunters for years. When ownership was finally decided, it wrapped up a saga marked with legal strife, historical mysteries, and a massive fortune lying silently beneath the sea.

What Was the “Indian Titanic”?

On November 23, 1942, a day marked by significant WWII events including Operation Uranus and the sinking of the SS Benlomond, the lesser-known tragedy of the SS Tilawa also unfolded as it sank to the bottom of the ocean.

The SS Tilawa wasn’t a military vessel, but rather, a passenger cargo ship, hauling 222 crew members and 732 passengers, as well as four artillerymen and 6,000 tons of cargo, including the silver bullion.

Departing from Bombay (now Mumbai), the SS Tilawa was en route to Durban, South Africa, carrying bullion meant to be made into coin by the South African mint, but it never reached its destination. Instead, near the Seychelles Islands, the Tilawa was struck by two torpedoes, an hour apart, fired by the Imperial Japanese Navy’s I-29 submarine. The ship sunk after the second torpedo hit, taking with it 280 of its occupants. The rest of those aboard were adrift for two days before the HMS Birmingham arrived and rescued 674 survivors.

The SS Tilawa took on the nickname the “Indian Titanic,” in reference to the infamous 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic, which resulted in approximately 1,500 deaths. According to tilawa1942, the Tilawa is believed to be “the only passenger cargo liner attacked in the Indian Ocean during the Second World War.”

The Recovery of the Wreckage

In 2017, 75 years after the SS Tilawa sank, the ship’s precious silver cargo was finally retrieved. British race car driver Ross Hyett, who founded Argentum Exploration Ltd. in 2012 with the goal of uncovering wartime wrecks laden with sunken treasures, was instrumental in the recovery. That July, Hyett’s company enlisted the help of Advanced Maritime Services (AMS) to embark on the ambitious quest to find the Tilawa’s remains.

It took AMS about two years to accurately locate the wreckage site of the Tilawa, according to a 2021 article in Baird Maritime. AMS then used a sophisticated, high-tech approach to carry out the salvage operation.

Enter the Seabed Worker. The Norwegian multipurpose sea vessel, which was previously used to locate the black boxes of Air France Flight 447, plumbed the depths of the Indian Ocean to recover the silver bullion from the SS Tilawa. It took six months to pull 2,364 bars of silver from approximately 3,500 meters deep, according to Baird Maritime.

Retrieving the silver from the ocean’s depths was the easy part. Bringing the bounty back home was much more difficult, especially as the salvage crew navigated under the mistaken belief of rightful ownership. They thought that the silver bullion was insured by the British Government, since that’s what was advertised to investors back in 2012. So the Seabed Worker, and its companion vessel, the Pacific Askari, had to strategically navigate the route back to the U.K.

To bypass the Suez Canal and South African territory, the vessels took a detour through the Seychelles and around the Cape of Good Hope, arriving in Southampton on October 2, 2017. Baird Maritime details that the silver bars were temporarily submerged at sea near the Seychelles and just outside South Africa’s territorial waters for transshipment onto the Pacific Askari, a tactic used to avoid being seized within territorial boundaries.

Once the vessels arrived at Southampton, Argentum made its claim with the Receiver of Wreck, presumably assuming the hardest part was over. But the Republic of South Africa, which had been in negotiations with a different firm to salvage the silver from the wreckage, stepped forward to stake its own claim.

A Bitter Legal Battle

Argentum asserted its rights as the salvor of the SS Tilawa silver, arguing it was entitled to compensation for recovering the precious metal from the ocean floor. The UKSC press summary explains the claim:

“Under maritime law, it is possible to make a claim for voluntary salvage, which means a salvor can make a claim regardless of whether the owner of the property requested or consented to the salvage operation. In this case, Argentum had retrieved the Silver without any prior agreement with South Africa, so its claim was for voluntary salvage.”

South Africa maintained throughout legal proceedings in the High Court, Court of Appeals, and finally the Supreme Court, that it was exempt from being sued based on “the principle of state immunity.” Argentum, meanwhile, countered that South Africa did not qualify for immunity, arguing that an exception within the State Immunity Act 1978 should apply.

The High Court and Court of Appeals initially ruled in favor of Argentum, recognizing its claim, but the UKSC unanimously overturned these decisions, siding with South Africa by stating the silver was intended for the sovereign act of minting currency and dismissing the argument that the silver was “in use” during transit, clarifying that cargo in a ship’s hold is not actively serving any purpose.

The Forgotten Tragedy

Outside the confines of the courtroom, the case shines a light on what tilawa1942 calls “The Forgotten Tragedy,” drawing renewed interest to the tale of the “Indian Titanic.” Could it help unravel some of the ship’s enduring mysteries posed by the website, like whether or not Japan knew there was precious cargo aboard the SS Tilawa, or why the ship didn’t have an escort, and its route wasn’t patrolled for enemy attack?

The remaining questions surrounding the ship’s fate may prove more profound than the legal battle over who is entitled to the silver that once lay in its wreckage.