Overview

• Prosecutors allege Eleonor “Gay” Courter, her husband Philip, diver Yves Gladu and Annette Pesty colluded to traffic bullion from the 1746 shipwreck
• French investigators say the Courters held at least 23 gold bars and sold 18 ingots online, including via eBay, for more than $192,000
• Yves Gladu confessed in 2022 to retrieving 16 bars during about 40 dives between 1976 and 1999 but denied supplying any to the Courters
• The Courters, both in their eighties, deny knowledge of the loot’s illicit origin and contend they believed they were handling legitimately acquired gold
• The case underscores the clash between France’s strict underwater heritage laws treating wrecks as national patrimony and more permissive US rules on private gold ownership