21 May 2013

Solomons govt keen on finding sunken gold from Japanese ship wreck

10:10 am on 21 May 2013

The Solomon Islands government is reported to be set on recovering more than 1.5 billion US dollars worth of gold bars thought to be on the ocean floor between Guadalcanal and Malaita.

A former MP and freelance journalist, Alfred Sasako, says he understands the gold is in the wreck of a Japanese ship sunk during the second world war.

He says a man from Isabel province who was aboard the ship told his son just before his death where to find the wreck and its cargo.

Mr Sasako says the government is harrassing the man for the wreck's location and has hired heavily armed foreign mercenaries to recover its precious cargo.

"Some of them on the ready 24 hours a day in high speed boats and all that to go this particular spot and get the cargo out before anyone else got their hands on it."

Alfred Sasako says how to get a share of the gold has been the subject of a many a late night squabble between government ministers.