Why would they be going after the ammo? Aside from being 80 years old and potentially unstable (and hence quite dangerous), why would they want ammo that's spent the last 8 decades underwater?
I don't get it. Steel - OK (for the reasons already posted). But why ammo - potentially very dangerous ammo?

A fair amount of brass in the cases I suppose. Is that as valuable as steel?

The Royal Navy also depth charged the wreck of the Lusitania on more than one occasion in the ensuing decades, allegedly to attempt to cover up the ammunition it was carrying.

Not the 15” ones - they’re a tad heavy!

well that means the only way the paper would blow away is if it detonates, but that would blow the house away too

Doesn't say what ammo they (allegedly) looted, but I'm guessing the smaller stuff (anti-aircraft and the like).
Having a 8 decade old unstable 15" shell stashed on your trawler is Darwin Award territory - if one of those suckers detonated on-board there wouldn't be much of anything left.

Interesting (short) read:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel

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Twitter

A few gunnery facts.:8

Given the date of sinking they are AP 15 inch shells on Repulse with a bursting charge of 48.5 lbs (22 kg) of 70/30 shellite. Prince of Wales had 14 inch guns the APC shells had a smaller 39.8 lb (18.1 kg) charge. Later in the war KGVs carried 5 HE shells v 95 AP per gun the HE shells had a charge of c107 lbs. (48.5 kg). Still, I wouldn't want to be near one that could go off at any time. The 4" HA/LA guns on Repulse used solid shells and 5.25" HA/LA guns on PoW used a combination of shells with bursting charges of 3.25 lbs (SAP) / 6 lbs (HE) of TNT. In PoW the guns had a theoretical AA ceiling of 46,500 feet, a report on the loss of PoW concluded the guns would have been much more effective against the attacking aircraft if the crews hadn't had insufficient training.

Apparently 100 'live' shells found on the ship

https://www.overtdefense.com/2023/05...ng-ww2-wrecks/

As mentioned above, the authorities found shells and scrap metal believed to be from PoW on a jetty at Tanjung Belungkor.
According to the New Straights Times:
Penalty is up to 2 years in prison and/or MYR100K fine (GBP17.5K / USD 21.5K)

They should also confiscate the ship as well,otherwise the Chinese will just pay the bill and try again...

Interesting Utube stuff
https://youtu.be/bjbwwrLUZ-o



https://youtu.be/k9iRRBT1z54

Unfortunately this is not new. Before the UK withdrawal from the Far East, the resident maritime squadron (205) used to keep an eye on the ships positions during our regular patrols over the South China Sea, as even then there were attempts to plunder the wrecks. If we sighted anything suspicious the RN would dispatch something post-haste to investigate.

Of note it was possible to see at least one of the vessel's' superstructure underwater at low water.

As we recovered 485 gold bars from the wreck of our cruiser HMS Edinburgh 200 miles off Murmansk, I think this took place in 1981, is this considered legal salvage even though a war grave was disturbed some 85 members of her crew going down with the ship after being torpedoed by a U boat?

it was approved by HM government with proceeds being split between government and salvors

Wouldn't it be a shame if some "unexploded ordnance" ;) happened to detonate whilst the salvage vessel was overhead. :E

There was a tv programme on it, they knew were it was stowed, so it was a targetted salvage in one particular spot and the rest of the wreck was not touched.

Ahh! THEY are ruthless grave scavengers, we are "licensed by the Treasury"

The ship and its contents remains the property of HM Government forever. Do you not understand that there is a difference between what you may do with your own property and what others may do?