Three-Month Wait To Recover Treasure

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32076, 26 August 1969, Page 34

Three-Month Wait To Recover Treasure

(New Zealand Press .Association)

AUCKLAND, August 25.

Three Auckland men who claim to have found treasure worth millions of dollars inTongan waters will have to wait up to three months before they resume work on its recovery.

The leader of the syndicate Mr C. Prast, said today that he expected a Tongan Government diving team to spend at least this time searching for the treasure. The Government divers left Nukualofa today in an attempt, to find the treasure, which Mr Prast says he and his partners have moved. . The syndicate’s Tongan lawyer, Mr C. Edwards, who practises in Auckland, returned yesterday from talks with the Tongan Deputy-Premier (Mr M. Tupouniua). Mr Prast said no formal agreement had been reached, but there were indications that if the Government divers could not find the bullion after a thorough search, he and his partners might be invited to return to Tonga. “The Government has authorised the spending of $20,000

on diving; and metal-detection equipment and it’s obvious they are going to spend some time bn the search to justify the cost,” Mr Prast said. “I am still confident they won’t find the treasure, except perhaps for a small part of it, and I don’t really think they will find even that.” Mr Prast said Mr Edwards had been successful in having the syndicate’s 40ft launch returned from the custody of the Nukualofa harbourmaster who had claimed it had been legally abandoned. A writ for its return had been prepared.

“It is now obviously a matter of waiting to see how the Government divers get on before we know quite what the next move will be,” Mr Prast said.