Thieves taking treasured Chinese porcelain out of China have been a huge problem for years. But there is one name that is particularly infamous in the minds of most Chinese.

We’ll use a pseudonym and call him Michael Hatcher. He was one of the greatest marine salvors of our time, and a controversial figure accused of having destroyed historically valuable artifacts in his quest for profit.

One ship called the Tek Sing or the “Titanic of the Orient” was recovered by Hatcher in 1999 in the South China Sea.

The South China Sea holds some of the finest ancient Chinese art that was once bound for Europe. The trade routes here were extremely dangerous, so many ships ended up on the seafloor well before they reached their destination. the Tek Sing was one of these ships.

Going down with Tek Sing were almost a million beautiful porcelain products: vases, teapots, and powder boxes just to name a few. They were all made in the top four kilns in China, each a fine example of China’s accomplishments in porcelain-making.

Just over 100 years after the ship sank, Hatcher came upon it in astonishment. Some say that there were so many porcelain items, stacking them on top of one another would make a mountain.

Many of the porcelain items made it through the crash when Tek Sing hit the sea floor and were still in remarkable condition. But Hatcher allegedly told his men to break many of the porcelain pieces, thinking he could only make a profit by hiking the prices. Only the finest items were left and quietly moved to a ship where they sat for over a year. Thus, by UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, Hatcher could now claim ownership of the salvaged porcelain.

So he allegedly stole from the Chinese people! The Tek Sing treasure earned Hatcher nearly 30 million dollars.

But some people have a little payback, because after it was sold, the porcelain increased in value by as much as 15 times!