$208m block of platinum discovered

TREASURE hunters have discovered a two-tonne block of metal - apparently platinum - which officials believe was intended for use in a fighter plane Japan hoped would help win it the 1942-45 Pacific War.

At the current market price, two tonnes of platinum would be worth nearly US$27 million (HK$208 million.) A Defence Department source said yesterday the metal had been bought legitimately in neutral Switzerland and might have been destined for a jet fighter like the German Messerschmidt ME 262. Platinum is capable of handling the stresses of high-performance aircraft.

President Fidel Ramos ordered that the block be handed to the Department of Science and Technology for analysis.

The dome-shaped metal was salvaged 21 metres under the sea off the coastal town of Lallo, Cagayan province, in 1993. The people who found it had kept it secret, said National Bureau of Investigation director Epimaco Velasco.

It was found by a treasure hunter who claimed to be the son of a Japanese Imperial Army soldier who had stayed in the Philippines after the war. The man, whose identity was not revealed, said he had traced the treasure through a map his father had given him.

Bureau agents seized the metal from a house in Lallo last Sunday on information provided by an informer after he allegedly had a fallout with his partners.