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Gold/Mining/Energy : BRE-X, Indonesia, Ashanti Goldfields, Strong Companies. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: alan holman who wrote (28003)	7/1/1998 7:54:00 AM
From: robnhood	Respond to of 28369

Hi Alan, Well here it is on the front page of the Globe.. <<no one will be held accountable for the explosion that killed 26 men at Westray...>>> money, money, money, makes the world go round... russell

To: alan holman who wrote (28003)	7/4/1998 8:50:00 AM
From: Mr Metals	Respond to of 28369

Saturday, July 4, 1998 Bre-X insiders sold $45M in stock as salting dwindled By SANDRA RUBIN The Financial Post The salting of core samples at Bre-X Minerals Ltd. trickled to a halt six months before the gold fraud was exposed -- but not before one last orgy of selling by some of the firm's top insiders. Holes drilled after September 1996 started coming up blank, painting a troubling picture of a huge empty zone at the heart of one of the world's richest gold strikes. Investors pouring their savings into the stock were not told. In fact, the company bumped up the estimated size of the Busang find twice more before the scam was exposed at the end of March 1997. Bre-X exploration chief John Felderhof, its late chairman David Walsh, corporate secretary Jeannette Walsh and vice-president Stephan McAnulty all have said they had no clue anything was amiss at the Indonesian site. But court documents show the four dumped $45 million in shares in the 10 weeks before the salting scheme started spluttering to a halt. There's no record of any of them except Jeannette Walsh ever selling Bre-X stock again. The team carrying out due diligence for Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., which exposed the fraud, said in a recently published paper there was a change in the salting pattern after Sept. 15. Its investigators found the number of samples Bre-X sent to the lab for assaying "dropped off markedly." "There's no question that's when the salting appears to have stopped," said Colin Jones, who led Freeport's on-site due diligence. "We don't know why it stopped, but it did." Filipino geologists Michael de Guzman, Cesar Puspos and Jonathan Nassey exercised $2.6 million in options on Bre-X stock Sept. 16. Of 94 holes drilled after that, only 25 were sent for testing. Two-thirds -- 16 -- came back showing absolutely no gold. Jones said the other nine contained at least small amounts. Investigative geologist Keith McCandlish said the Freeport paper and the record of insider trading viewed together suggest a deliberate plan to bring the stock price down gently. "This makes me conclude the whole thing may have been even more carefully orchestrated than everybody thinks at the moment, and that this was the beginning of an exit strategy," said McCandlish of Associated Consultants in Calgary. "They were probably planning to release results showing a few unmineralized areas, and then a few more, and let the air out of the stock price slowly." But Bre-X never published the negative results, possibly because of a disagreement over whether it was time to end the fraud. So North American investors were not alerted to what Freeport geologists called "a large, unmineralized volume of rock in the centre of the ore body." On the contrary, markets were told the deposit was larger than announced. The resource estimate was hiked to 57 million ounces on Dec. 4 and ratcheted up again to 71 million ounces eight weeks later, on Feb. 17. The last estimates were prepared by SNC-Lavalin Inc.'s Kilborn Engineering unit using drill results available as of Jan. 15, Bre-X said in its original announcement. McCandlish said Kilborn's revised resource estimates raise a lot of questions. "What I question is how they could not know those holes had been drilled, and did they use them in the new resource estimate or did they just ignore them," he asked. "How could they produce a new resource estimate which gives more contained gold in the ground? They must have known about the new holes, yet did they not ask for those logs?" SNC spokesman Robert Racine said Kilborn carried out the work it was hired to do. "Our PT Kilborn subsidiary worked on the basis of information provided to it by Bre-X," he said. "The only way to check any accuracy was to do an independent drilling program, which was certainly not our mandate." While not addressing the question of whether it had access to the dud drill results, SNC said later in a faxed statement it is "not a regulatory agency." "PT Kilborn was in no way negligent, and there is no causal link between PT Kilborn and Bre-X shareholders or their alleged damages." Nonetheless, the rapidly rising resource estimates helped turn the once-tiny exploration firm into a star on the Toronto Stock Exchange by that fall, with a market capitalization closing in on $6 billion and a stock price heading toward historic highs at $280 on a pre-split basis. But behind the scenes, Bre-X was stripped of a key exploration permit by the Indonesian government and was being pressured to take Barrick Gold Corp. as a development partner. Felderhof sold $28 million in shares between early July and mid-September, according to an affidavit filed in the Bahamas by Deloitte & Touche, Bre-X's bankruptcy trustee. He declined to comment on the blank tests, or why he sold so much stock that summer, after reviewing a list of questions with his Canadian and U.S. lawyers. "Really, that goes to the area that's at the centre of the litigation," said Toronto lawyer Joseph Groia. "We're not going to litigate this in the press." The court documents show David Walsh unloaded about $8.7 million in Bre-X stock while Jeannette Walsh dumped $7.5 million over the same period. McAnulty ditched about $1.32 million worth. Alan Lenczner, who has been representing all three, did not return repeated calls. All, including SNC-Lavalin, have been named in huge class action lawsuits filed by investors who lost money in the securities swindle. MM

To: alan holman who wrote (28003)	7/6/1998 10:26:00 AM
From: Mr Metals	Respond to of 28369

Bre-X Minerals Ltd - Post says insiders sell $45-million of stock in final weeks Bre-X Minerals Ltd BXMShares issued 219,103,3301997-05-07 close $0.09Monday Jul 6 1998The Financial Post reports in its July 4-6 edition that Bre-X Minerals insiders sold $45-million worth of stock after the world's most famous salting job was wound down. Reporter Sandra Rubin says holes drilled after September 1996 started to come up blank, painting a troubling picture of a huge empty zone at the heart of what was supposedly the world's richest gold strikes. That, however, did not stop the company from gushing about the estimated size of the Busang property in Indonesia before the scam was exposed in late March 1997. Court documents reveal that while performing its due diligence, U.S.-based Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold noted the salting dropped off markedly after September 15. "We don't know why it stopped, but it did," says Freeport's Colin Jones. Geologists Michael de Guzman, Cesar Puspos, and Jonathan Nassey exercised $2.6-million in options on September 16. (c) Copyright 1998 Canjex Publishing Ltd. canada-stockwatch.com MM

To: alan holman who wrote (28003)	7/12/1998 6:39:00 AM
From: James R.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 28369

This part of the Brex find still bothers me. When DeGusmans'? body was found the face & hands were removed by wild pigs making I.D. difficult.His rolex watch was removed before falling. A trial That just ended in Exeter England In wich one Albert Walker was found guilty of murder.It seemes the victims body was caught up in a fishermans net,and was I.D.by the roylex watch he was wearing. It seemes Mr. Waker had assumed the victims I.D.and was doing very well until the Rolex was found. The question for me remains "why would DeGusman" remove his watch?