On the voyage home, there were several storms, and eventually the galleon was abandoned near Malta, and ended up wrecked on the Calabrian coast.

The Turkish convoy had been heading from Constantinople to Alexandria, and carried a number of pilgrims bound for Mecca, the exiled former Chief Black Eunuch, Sünbül Agha, as well as a woman, originally considered by her captors to be one of the wives of the Ottoman Sultan Ibrahim, and her young son, who was therefore thought to be an heir to the Ottoman throne.

[5] (This practice was quite common among Ottoman rulers of the era; for example, the mother, the grandmother, the great-grandmother, and the first three wives of Ibrahim were all of non-Turkish origin and were all sold to the harems of their respective husbands as slaves.

On the voyage home, the Maltese vessel carrying the loot stopped at Crete, then a Venetian dominion, where it took on board supplies and unloaded part of the treasure there.

The Ottomans, already enraged at the loss of the ships, considered this act a breach of Venetian neutrality, and soon declared war on the Republic.