The five suspects in the Prince de Conty wreck gold ingot affair will face justice in 2027

Three French people and a couple of Americans will be tried in May 2027 before the Brest criminal court for their involvement in the resale of ingots looted from the wreck of the Prince de Conty, stranded in 1746 in Brittany, the Brest prosecutor's office told AFP on Thursday. Yves and Brigitte Gladu, a Breton couple aged respectively 79 and 76, their sister-in-law Annette May Pesty, 80, and an American couple living in Florida, Eleonor (known as Gay) Courter, 82, and her husband Philip Courter, 84, will be judged on May 27, 2027, Brest prosecutor Stéphane told AFP Kellenberger.

The suspects are all being prosecuted for criminal conspiracy, some of them also being prosecuted for laundering theft and concealment of theft. The case began on February 21, 2018 when Michel L'Hour, director of the French Department of Underwater Archaeological Research (Drassm), reported a suspicious sale of five gold bars on an American website. The American authorities seized the loot because Michel L'Hour assured that the ingots in question came from the wreck of the Prince de Conty, an India Company frigate which was shipwreck on December 3, 1746 on a stormy and foggy night, near Belle-Île-en-Mer (Morbihan).

Submerged at a depth of 10 to 15 meters, in a particularly difficult to access area, the wreck was forgotten until its discovery in 1974 and then its sacking the following year. Quickly identified, the seller of the bars turns out to be Gay Courter, a successful American writer living in Crystal River, on the west coast of Florida. She says she got these ingots from a couple of French friends, Gérard Pesty (since deceased) and Annette May Pesty.

The investigations allowed investigators to trace Annette May Pesty's brother-in-law, Yves Gladu, a professional underwater photographer well-known in the industry. He had escaped a first trial, in November 1983, already relating to the looting of the Prince of Conty. Met by AFP, Brigitte and Yves Gladu did not wish to speak before their trial. The Courter couple's lawyer told AFP that he would plead for the release of his clients. “If the investigating judge had been courageous, she would have issued an order dismissing the case taking into account the context”, in particular the advanced age of the suspects, estimated Mr. Grégory Lévy. But “they spent years there (on this affair) and the show must be maintained,” he quipped.