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In a story that sounds ripped from the pages of a novel, an American novelist, her husband, and three French nationals are set to stand trial in France next May for their alleged involvement in the resale of gold bars looted from an 18th-century shipwreck decades ago.
Eleanor “Gay” Courter, 82, an author of best-selling fiction, nonfiction, and memoir; her husband, Philip Courter, 84, a film director; Yves Gladu, 79, a professional underwater photographer; his wife, Brigitte Gladu, 76; and his sister-in-law, Annette May Pesty, 80, have all been charged with conspiracy. Some also face charges of money laundering and receiving stolen goods.
According to her website, Gay Courter has mainly written historical fiction and thrillers. And in case you were wondering, none of her books has a plot involving gold looted from a mysterious shipwreck.
The case will go before a criminal court in Brest on May 27, 2027, Agence France-Presse reported.
The case begins with the 1974 discovery of Le Prince de Conty, a French trading ship that sank off the coast of Brittany in 1746. The wreck was found 30 to 50 feet underwater near the island of Belle-Île-en-Mer. After gold bullion was discovered there, the site was looted in 1975. Lawsuits tied up the wreck until the mid-1980s, according to France’s Department of Underwater Archaeological Research (DRASSM). In 1985, archaeologists resumed excavations to the site and recovered Chinese porcelain dating to the 18th century, tea crates, and three ingots of Chinese gold. However that same year, a storm battered the ship and the wreck was reburied.
The current investigation began in 2018, when Michel L’Hour, then-director of DRASSM, reported a suspicious sale of five gold ingots on the website of a US auction house. L’Hour told US officials he believed the ingots came from Le Prince de Conty. The objects were seized and returned to France in 2022.
Investigators identified Gay Courter as the seller of the ingots. She said Pesty and Pesty’s late partner, Gérard, had given her the gold. Pesty, for her part, had appeared with the gold on Antiques Roadshow in 1999 and said she found it while diving near Cape Verde. Investigators found that story implausible and turned their attention to Yves Gladu.
In 2022, while in custody, Gladu confessed to looting 16 gold bars from Le Prince de Conty over 40 dives to the site between 1976 and 1999. He said he had sold the gold in 2006 to a retired military officer living in Switzerland, and he denied any connection to the Courters. Investigators found, however, that Gladu had known the Courters since the 1980s and had vacationed with them three times.
The Courters were detained in 2022 and placed under house arrest. Investigators found that the couple had at one point held at least 23 gold bars and had sold 18 of them for nearly $200,000. The Courters say the money was meant to go to Gladu. Last year, their lawyer, Grégory Lévy, told the Guardian that the couple had no idea the gold was looted and “didn’t see the harm as in the United States regulations for gold are completely different from those in France.” He said they did not profit from the sales.
Earlier this week, Lévy told AFP that he will argue for the Courters’ acquittal. The Gladus declined to comment to AFP on the trial.