Estimating the Treasure to Be Worth 22 Bil. Won
Dongah Construction, which announced in the early 2000s that it had discovered an object believed to be the sunken Russian battleship Donskoii, claimed rights to the ship as the first discoverer.
Dongah Construction said on July 19, "We discovered the Donskoii in 2003, and it was announced to the world at a press conference. We have the rights of the first discoverer as we found the ship through a normal route with permission from the Pohang Ocean Service.”
The company said, "It should be discussed what legal rights the first discoverer has. Shinil Group recently claimed to be the first to find the warship 113 years after its sinking. We need to correct the false claim.”
Dongah Construction, which was a listed company, was delisted as a result of the court's bankruptcy ruling, but has been operating normally after the restructuring process. Yearly sales in last year's audit report was 140 billion won.
With the news of discovering the Donskoii, Dongah Construction’s stock price rose for 17 consecutive days from December 15, 2000 to January 4, 2001. It continued exploration with the Korea Ocean Research & Development Institute even after delisting. It held a press conference on June 2003 to announce the discovery of an object believed to be the Donskoii. However, due to the creditors’ objection, it did not salvage the ship and the period of permission for salvage work ended in 2014.
Dongah Construction said, "What Shinil Group has done is just to go to the spot that we found first and take clearer pictures with improved equipment. If Shinil, which is not authorized to excavate, takes just a single gold coin from the ship, it’s theft.”
The company added, “The reason we said “an object believed to be the Donskoii” instead of clearly stating that the object was the Donskoii was that it was less than 100 years after the ship sank in 1905. We needed to avoid dispute over ownership with Russia. It was clear, however, that we had already found the sunken vessel.”
Dongah Construction said, "Shinil Group claims that the value of the Donskoii is 150 trillion won. I wonder how they will pay 15 trillion won of the excavation deposit (10% of the estimated value of the treasure). We estimate there would be about 500kg of gold in Donskoii, which is worth 22 billion won.”