Restoration of goods taken from vessel; reward; penalty for offering for sale.
S.C. Code Ann. § 54-7-60
in effectIf any person shall offer or expose for sale any goods or effects whatsoever belonging to any ship or vessel lost, stranded or cast on shore as aforesaid and unlawfully taken away or reasonably suspected to have been, the person to whom such goods or effects shall be so offered for sale or any magistrate may stop and seize such goods and effects and if the person who shall have offered them for sale or some other person in his behalf shall not, within ten days next after such seizure, make out to the satisfaction of such magistrate that he became honestly possessed of them, such goods and effects shall, by order of such magistrate, be forthwith delivered over to and for the use of the owner thereof, on proof of his claim and the payment of a reasonable reward, not exceeding five per cent on the value, to be ascertained by such magistrate, to the person who shall seize them. And he who offered such goods and effects for sale as aforesaid shall forfeit and pay to the owner twice the value of such goods, to be recovered according to law.
Source: Open US Law by Vaquill AI (CC BY 4.0)URL: https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t54c007.phpFetched: 10/17/2026