Two Men Caught On Tape Stealing Shipwreck Artifact

August 18, 2010 KEY WEST, Fla. -- Surveillance cameras were rolling as two men stole a gold bar worth $550,000 from a Key West museum. The gold bar had been on display at the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum in Key West for more than two decades.

Mel Fisher Museum At 5:15 p.m. Wednesday, two men were caught on security cameras stealing the gold. Police said one of the men acted as a lookout as the other somehow broke off a piece of the bulletproof glass designed to allow visitors to touch the gold bar but never remove it from the box. The men broke into the museum just after closing time, and because of the security cameras, museum workers knew the bar was missing and called police within minutes. The nearly 75-ounce solid metal bar was kept in a case where museum visitors could touch and lift it. The bar was recovered from the wreck of the Santa Margarita, a 1622 Spanish galleon discovered in 1980 off the Florida Keys by Mel Fisher. For fans of historical shipwrecks and sunken treasures, the iconic gold bar is the most popular exhibit in the museum.