NATION NOW

A sunken ship could hold $130 million in Nazi gold. But who gets it?

Josh Hafner
USA TODAY

It's an Indiana Jones tale come to life: A chest in the wreckage of a sunken German ship could hold up to $130 million worth of Nazi gold. But just who owns the wreck remains in question.

That's according to British tabloid The Sun, which reported that the sunken SS Minden off the coast of Iceland contains a box with as much as four tons of treasured metal inside. 

The ship set off from Brazil in 1939, just days after World War II broke out, apparently to deliver gold from South American banks to Germany, the newspaper recounted. 

British naval forces spotted the ship and, rather than see the cargo seized, the Minden's captain supposedly sank the vessel — on orders from Adolf Hitler, no less, the Sun claimed.

Now the U.K.-based Advanced Marine Services, whose crew found the box, wants permission from Iceland's government to cut a hole in the ship's hull and remove the chest, claiming its contents belong to its finder, the Sun reported. 

According to the newspaper, Icelandic officials were to declare just who owns the wrecked ship, which lies 120 miles southeast of Iceland in the Atlantic Ocean.

Read the Sun's full report.

Learn more:Is there a Nazi 'gold train'? We're about to find out