It may possibly be just a issue of time just before treasure hunters set their sights on the sunken spoils of the Costa Concordia, which had more than 4200 people on board.
"As prolonged as there are bodies in there, it truly is regarded off base to all people simply because it really is a grave," stated Robert Marx, a veteran diver and the creator of many publications on maritime history and underwater archaeology and cheap soccer scarves treasure hunting. "But when all the bodies are out, there will be a mad dash for the valuables."
The Mafia, he mentioned, even has underwater teams that specialise in really going immediately after sunken booty.
The Costa Concordia was essentially a floating luxury lodge, and many of the passengers embarked on the unwell-fated cruise with their finest clothes and jewels so they could parade them in casinos and at gala dinners beneath towering chandeliered ceilings.
On leading of that was substantial prosperity belonging to the ship alone: retailers stocked with jewellery, more than 6000 functions of art decorating walls and a wellness spa that contains a selection of 300-yr-aged woodblock prints by Katsushika Hokusai, a Japanese artist most well-known for his function of a giant wave framing Mt Fuji in the distance.
"It's now a paradise for divers," stated Hans Reinhardt, a German lawyer who represents 19 German guests looking for compensation for their reduction.
He explained some of his clients travelled with diamond-studded jewels and other heirlooms that had been in their people big and tall soccer jerseys for generations.
"They missing lots of jewelry - watches, necklaces, what ever ladies put on when they want to get nicely dressed," Mr Reinhardt explained. "They wanted to show off what they have."
The enormous cruise liner by itself is worth 450 million euros ($555 million), but which is just the expense of the ship and motor and will not just take into account the value of all other objects on board, mentioned Davide Barbano, the spokesman for Costa Crociere, the Italian business that operated the Costa Concordia.
Mr Barbano confirmed that amongst the sunken objects are home furniture, the vast art assortment, computers, wine, champagne, as effectively as cheap soccer scarves regardless of what valuables have been locked away in safes in personal cabins. Costa Crociere nevertheless lawfully owns the ship and the guests very own their sunken objects.
The ship ran aground off the Tuscan island of Giglio immediately after the captain, Francesco Schettino, veered from his accepted program, apparently to move nearer to entertain travellers with a nearer look at of the island - a widespread cruise ship apply.
Capt Schettino is now underneath residence arrest, going through accusations of manslaughter, triggering a shipwreck and abandoning ship just before all passengers have been evacuated. Seventeen men and women are verified killed in the January thirteen shipwreck, with fifteen far more still missing.
For now, the ship's wreckage has been impounded by authorities and is surrounded by rescue personnel, cleanse-up crews and researchers monitoring its stability on the rocky perch exactly where it ran aground.
Civil Safety, the agency that is working the rescue effort, says there is so significantly activity surrounding it now that authorities never see a danger of looting nevertheless. It also states it plans to get rid of the wreckage prior to looters can attain it.
But Mr Marx says divers inevitably make a dash for sunken loot, even at fantastic risk, and they deal with shipwrecks as a totally free for all.
He estimates that it will get about four to 6 months ahead of a true treasure hunt will begin - in part simply because divers will want to steer clear of the tough winter season sea. He mentioned some divers will be set off because the ship is even now shifting on the reef it collided into and is regarded unstable.
But quickly, treasure hunters will go.
Even now, there are those trying to make a revenue off the catastrophe. On eBay, all sorts of trinkets relevant to the shipwreck have already come up for sale, from coat hangers and medallions embossed with the cruise liner's identify to a Costa Concordia desk program.
Mr Marx explained every thing that is pulled up from this now-popular ship will have value.
"Even the dishes, the crockery inside of that ship - that is really going to be well worth an absolute lot of money," Mr Marx said.
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