I think they all knew. I had heard some people quit on deGuzman because they felt he was hassling them way too much. They also hinted that if they spoke about it, their health could suffer. Now that is interesting. Someone could detect that a big fix was in. Other money trails to follow was the large cash outlays from certain sources from the get go. Of course that could have been influenced by the reputation of deGz from working on Oki Tedi. I had heard too that there were certain planning sessions based on meetings with the geos in Seattle, who suddenly had a lot of travel money at an early stage. They were dead broke before the fact, and then out of the blue they got ahold of the standard promoters and suddenly millions were profferred. It sounds like certain legal eagles/brokerages out west were conduits for planned money. Now this whole affair/property however had been run by Felderhof thru the Aussie exchange where there was considerably more skepticism about it as it had failed to show promise at that time. Failed in that the assays were shown to be lacking. Now they jump the pond and the whole deal gets resurrected without any static or short circuit due to the Aussie debacle.
The metallurgical company in North Australia which was doing the work on the samples could plainly see that there was smelly gold. It was apparent that the gold grains were smooth river washed spheres of gold, 40 times larger in volume than the clasts they were supposedly ground out of. That should have told that firm that it was a phony. The photomicrographs of the gold were comical. Surely somebody in the company would have got back to Felderhof and/or deGz with the news, confidentiality or not. And Both Felderhof and Deg were travelling about the island on a motorbike talking to placer miners, presumably about sources.. we now know were sources of contaminants. Apparently it was known they bought gold off placer miners who abound in the region. There is lots of gold in Borneo and it has been mined by placer methods for 4000 years by the Chinese.
I have told and retold that the smoking gun is the geochems. The company published a geochem map that showed a clear anomaly in ten metals over the deposit. A beautiful oval of high indicators elements that outlined the high grade. Now that geochem anomaly does not exist. In fact, an Aussie company which took geochems there finding no signature at all in contrast to the company claims, backed out of participation.
To fake the geochems in ten metals in dirt bags, require the most exquisitely rationed titration, which must increase in the parts per billion and million, depending on the metal, gradually towards the center of the deposit. This would require either faking the paper reports in toto, and slurring over which lab it was supposed to have come from, a decidely tricky task, or having a whole chemical lab with dozens of burrets and carefully prepared solution added in careful titer increments to each bag. A real factory.
Now Felderhof claims he had personal control over the geochems himself, that it was his baby, and he proudly displayed the map to all comers. In other words he had to know or bloody well should have known, or he is the most foolish of dupes of deGz's schemes. Salting all that core and all those dirt bags either required 5 knowing assistants, or was at the very least a full time job for the two geologists. One guy doing all that must have been a herculean task. 200 drill holes with say 800 feet of intersections would be 80,000 samples to salt. That in 3 years would be 100 a day some days just in the drill core.
Geochems --> A 3 mile property with dirt bags every 25 metres with one mile lines ever 100 meters, would be 3072 samples. A mini factory to get all the samples just right for 30,000 additions of different metals in different quantities -- all done in discrete levels according to a map. That is an impressive amount of work. This was no penny ante job if they wanted to fool the assay lab coming back with the ICP. Each sample to add metal titer to would take at least 20 seconds per metal with a burrette. That is over 2 minutes per sample. That would take 5 weeks of constant 8 hour a day work. And that does not count mixing the solution, testing it, and setting up glass ware, moving the samples and keeping track. You might as well say 12 weeks. Who did all that? If were just figure-fiddling, then someone in a lab should have seen they did not produce those figures. The lab trail should be checkable.
The faking of the geochems puts Felderhof in jail, or liable as an overseer that the whole thing was stretched out of sheer whole cloth.
Felderhof also stated in print that he panned gold from the core, and personally saw gold coming from the pan. Now that is a hands on operation. Did he take ground up core from deGz? He did not say that he did. That is highly suspcious that it is a dead lie. He also would orchestrate show and tells indicating that the "knew" that gold was high in certain sectors and low in others. Sounds like knowing lie or he is taking his cues from deGz like a Charlie McCarthy. And when people took their own samples from core as was allowed and came up empty as they always did they were routinely told that this was due to natural variation, and was to be expected. Now If I were the head geo and 20 people came up 0.0 on my rich sections, would I not be concerned? Apparently Felderhof was not fazed at all.
I would rate Walsh's HA as possibly induced. I believe that the whole board were in on it from the get go, even the people in the company who resigned from the board before this debacle got started. I suspect the whole crew. It was I believe a highly planned affair and brokerage people and early investors knew it was a scam way back when. Even down to the method, the amount to salt, and the patsies being offed. I would not be surprised to see personnel common to the New Cinch affair, which has similar fingerprints. If the people behind it have reason to kill as was evident in the New Cinch affair - where they suicided the assayer -- a single bullet, with no powder burns, in the forehead - a gun was never found.. a door kicked in - ruled 'suicide' by the local Sherrif. Las Vegas mob. New Cinch was planned. Planned well. So was Bre-X. A whole orchestration. Not just a dozen, but scores knew the deal.
The core has not alteration or shearing at all. As dull as you ever saw core. Massive stringers of pyrite in it, but boring as hell sandstone. I remarked once upon seeing it, "are you sure it has gold in it? It looks as tight as a drum." I wish I had held on to that thought. It should have rung a lot of alarm bells. Nobody questioned it. Herd mentality.
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