4.4 • 796 Ratings
🗓️ 3 October 2024
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Carl Allen is a multi-millionaire former businessman who ran a trash bag company in the US.
He's now the owner of an island in the Bahamas, a philanthropist and deep-sea treasure hunter, scouring the seabed for sunken Spanish galleons, slave ships and long-lost treasure. He tells us about his relentless search for one Spanish galleon that’s fired his imagination for the past 40 years. We discuss the ethics of treasure hunting and his belief that the best way to bring up relics from the bottom of the ocean is through PPPs - public-private partnerships. Produced and presented by Gideon Long
(Image: Carl Allen on a boat with some treasure. Image credit: Brendan Chavez at Allen Exploration)
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Gideon Long and welcome to Business Daily Meets from the BBC World Service. |
0:06.3 | This is where we meet people from the world of business from all over the globe. |
0:09.9 | Today, the final program in our series looking at shipwrecks and treasure. |
0:13.6 | And my guest is a multi-millionaire businessman who owns an island in the Bahamas, is a philanthropist, |
0:19.3 | and who spends his time scouring the seas for sunken ships |
0:22.4 | and treasure. We're finding ships that could be some of the oldest going back to the 1500s, all the way |
0:27.7 | up to Civil War wrecks, modern day wrecks. It's just littered with shipwrecks. We know there's |
0:34.2 | 190 shipwrecks in our area that have been documented. |
0:38.1 | We've located in five years, 22 other wrecks. |
0:41.0 | Businessman Carl Allen, he tells us about the thrill of finding treasure on the ocean floor. |
0:46.2 | I get excited with everything, but when we find something big, it's, I feel like I'm having a out-of-body experience, |
0:53.1 | and the whole crew gets fired up, and when we get onto a hot streak and start finding stuff, it's like a bolt of energy. |
0:59.7 | I mean, it's just pure adrenaline. |
1:03.0 | Unlike some of the people I've spoken to for this week's programs, Carl says there's nothing wrong with being a professional treasure hunter. |
1:09.5 | I have spent in the last five years millions of dollars, |
1:12.3 | I have lost money because I don't sell artifacts. |
1:14.9 | Now, do I own some of this? |
1:16.4 | I do. |
1:17.3 | And look, I found it. |
1:19.4 | You know, I paid the money to get it. |
1:21.5 | So I'm not ashamed. |
1:22.7 | I'm proud of it. |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in -139 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.