At a bar near Melbourne Beach, the underwater treasure hunter met the Army Ranger who was also a cryptocurrency millionaire and adjunct professor at one of America’s most prestigious universities.
The conversation turned to the 300-year-old Spanish galleon wrecked on the ocean floor just off the coast, and more importantly, the motherlode of gold and silver that went down with it. It was right there, the treasure hunter said, just waiting to be salvaged.
The decorated veteran and professor, it turned out, was also a systems engineer and coder. He’d developed satellite communications and avionics for military contractors at renowned laboratories. Some of that work was classified, he said, but maybe he could use his expertise to help create a technology to scan the ocean for the elusive gold?
In October 2018, Tampa-based treasure-hunting company Seafarer Exploration announced it had hired “Dr. Michael Torres,” a brilliant “wounded war veteran receiving a Purple Heart with Oak Cluster” to do just that – help them find treasure with tech.