St Elias Mines!
The next major Canadian Gold Mining Scam, IN THE MAKING!
Proud to be a Canadian A ?

WTF is wrong with our politicians,our government ? Justice? THIS IS NO FAKE!
The truth is being covered up for now in this conspiracy! to hide the TRUTH
of a major gold find, but how long before the truth is known to
all Canadians? The truth will come out! Only in Canada,,,,Pithy!




Back to Busang '' BRE-X Minerals''

By The Calgary Herald May 29, 2007
Alfred Maliangga hunches over a bucket, one hand in a silvery soup of
mercury and dirt, the other gripping a hose held together with rubber
bands.

He's seemingly unconcerned, or unaware, the highly toxic mixture could
kill him. Instead, Maliangga and a half-dozen other Indonesians are
more interested in the recipe to make a fortune.

"There is gold here," says Robert Lomban, 26, who has patiently waited
three months for a dime-sized bit of sparkling bullion to be produced
by a primitive, illegal mining operation.

This is Busang 10 years after a $3-billion hoax called Bre-X Minerals
unfolded. It is the centre of an unprecedented scam, the ideal
location to manufacture a motherlode and sell it to voracious
investors on the other side of the world.

Once described as a "geologist's dream," this is the far-flung place
where the nightmare began -- the remote Indonesian jungle location
where the Calgary-based company convinced 40,000 investors they'd
struck an underground fortune.

Instead, it was a fake.

Now, a decade after the gold dust turned to ashes, locals still
believe buried treasure lies beneath the jungle -- and they are eager
to prove it.

Speculators like Lomban are running makeshift mining operations smack
in the middle of this patch of rainforest. And other business people
in this region are inviting Canadian investors back.

Known in the western world as Borneo, Kalimantan is the largest island
in the Indonesian archipelago. It's rich with natural resources,
described as "the land of hope" in an otherwise poor and developing
nation.

East Kalimantan, the province where Busang is found, is dubbed the
"national coffer" due to its vast reserves of oil and gas, coal,
forests -- and gold.

Its population of nearly three million is diverse, including
indigenous Dayaks who are split into ethnic sub- groups with their own
customs and dialects. Those living near Busang have been touched by
modernization and lost many traditions. The practice of tattooing and
ear lobe stretching, for instance, is dying along with the eldest
members of the tribe.

All of this added to the allure of what was touted in 1996 by one
Canadian analyst to be "the gold discovery of the century" and "an
investor's political minefield" at the same time.

Benny Wahju believed.

The president of Inco subsidiary PT Ingold Management in Indonesia has
tramped these jungles himself seeking riches.

"Limited access adds more to the mystery. It gives you a romantic
touch," says Wahju, a former executive of the Indonesian Mining
Association.

Indeed, he says Busang was the perfect place to start a tampering
scheme of unprecedented proportions. Unscrupulous players salted
exploration samples, adding outside gold to elevate the test results.

"It's remote. It's unknown. The government is corrupt. You can bribe
everybody to justify your story," Wahju explains.

Ten years hasn't dulled the area's seductiveness.

Today, the journey to the heart of the jungle is just as gruelling as
it was when Bre-X set up camp in 1993.

The nearest sign of civilization is about five kilometres away in the
village of Mekar Baru, home to about 700 Dayaks. Even they are
effectively cut off from the rest of the world, with no computers,
telephones or mail service. An Indonesian travel agent won't entertain
queries about visiting Busang.

The area, the agent reported, is restricted and travel there is deemed
"high risk."

Villagers say they haven't seen foreigners since the nearby Bre-X
exploration camp was closed in 1997 amid allegations core samples were
sprinkled with outside gold from the river as well as shavings from
jewelry.

In fact, no one has flown in by helicopter since the same year Bre-X
exploration manager Michael de Guzman fell out of one in 1997.

Getting to Busang today is a tortuous journey that begins in
Samarinda, the nearest major centre some 200 kilometres away as the
crow flies. It can be done by barge, which takes about a week, or a
combination of road and river travel that can be done in a day.

Overland travel takes five hours, and ends at a small village where
the second leg starts by boat. It's another six hours upriver to Mekar
Baru, and then a two-hour hike to the former Bre-X headquarters.

Canadian geologist Trevor Cavicchi made a similar trek a decade ago
for Bre-X, his first job out of university.

The sights and smells of the jungle never left him. Leeches would worm
their way into his boots. Even the tiniest of plants -- vines no wider
than twine -- were hazardous.

"These little vines with hundreds of little hooks on them, they're
barbed. And you had to be really careful," recalls Cavicchi, who lives
in Okotoks.

It's unlikely the former Bre-X employee would recognize the place today.

The buildings situated in a once-cleared area are now hidden,
reclaimed by the jungle.

Coloured rocks that once spelled out Bre-X's name on a hillside are
gone, as are the roofs of the concrete-walled offices where de Guzman
once barked out orders.

In an incredible five years in the mid-1990s, a bustling business
centre was built by the Canadian firm at Busang.

"When we first arrived, there was just old shacks, rat houses made
from wooden (planks)," senior Bre-X geologist Cesar Puspos once told
forensic investigators, who later alleged he was a key conspirator in
the tampering.

Many local villagers worked at the company during Busang's glory
years. In fact, they had pegged their future on the upstart mining
company, which promised to build a secondary school and a cistern for
well water.

Even they were taken by the fraud.

However, looking back, there were signs something was wrong early on.

Drilling operator Ian, 34, remembers a yellow rock being pulled from
the ground in 1995.

The sample was hidden away in a bag. The drilling hole was filled in.

"I thought it was very strange," says Ian, who like many Indonesians
goes by one name. "Then after Cesar closed the hole, they signed it
with a yellow flag."

After that, the area was closed. Ian was sent to work farther away, in
an area known as Busang II. The stone he pulled from the expanded area
was green.

"Such rock has no gold," he says through an interpreter.

Yet, that same year, Bre-X declared Busang contained one of the
biggest gold deposits in the world.

Former vice-president John Felderhof once speculated there could be as
much as 200 million ounces of gold at Busang.

Isolated from the outside world -- and unaware of the stock market
fever surrounding the find -- Ian sensed trouble.

"I hoped Busang or Bre-X would still do exploration, but the fact was
they manipulated the data," he says at his village, taking a long pull
on a cigarette.

"But why did they do it?" he asks.

"Why?"

Even today, locals believe gold is in nearly every river on this
island, as well as the mountains, where the most precious rocks are
found deep underground.

River panning is one thing; extracting gold from the land is another story.

Processing material pulled from Busang is even more difficult than
getting there.

On this day, Lomban and his co-horts cook up a tiny bead of the shiny
bullion after three months of relentless digging by hand to a depth of
30 metres.

The material was bagged and hauled down the mountain, along a slippery
footpath about 500 metres from the former Bre-X camp headquarters.

Today, the soil sparkles in the Indonesian sun with flecks of pyrite,
better know as fool's gold.

It's 32 C. With near 100 per cent humidity, a cotton shirt melts to
the skin like Saran Wrap.

It takes several hours hours to transform a bag of dirt into a bit of
bullion, a process that will be repeated many times.

"It's very simple," says Hasyim Asyari, who earns the equivalent of
$250 per month to run the operation for the Dayak villager who owns
it.

It's hardly effortless. Indeed, the process of extracting invisible
bits of gold is back-breaking.

The soil is placed in six drums connected by large rubber belts to a
wobbly wheel.

A gas-powered generator rotates the barrels. A steel pipe inside each
drum crushes the material, separating dirt from rock.

Then, the recipe to make gold takes over.

Liquid mercury is added to bind the gold. Water washes the mixture,
leaving a small amount of sediment which is then filtered through a
handkerchief.

The tiny nugget that remains is placed under a blowtorch to burn off impurities.

What's left is worth about $50 when it's sold in Samarinda to a dealer.

Since this rudimentary operation was set up in 1998, workers say about
10 kilograms of gold have been produced.

There used to be four similar sites in the area. Two have shut in recent years.

Despite the Bre-X trickery, there are still those who believe massive
amounts of gold could kickstart a commercial mine in the jungle.

Felderhof says those who declared Busang lacked gold, causing the
company's stunning collapse, were "inept."

He's not alone believing in the area's potential. Busang is still a
mystery, says Ahmad Syakerani of PT Askatindo Aneka Karya in
Indonesia, an original partner in the Busang area.

Syakerani contends there is gold, but a deeper question remains: How much?

"That is the problem," says Syakerani. "If there is someone who was
interested to continue the Busang project, please come to Indonesia.
Do not hesitate, because there is gold at that area.

"We would say many thanks if there is (someone) from Canada to invest again."

[email protected]

Mining for Gold With Bare Hands

Four rudimentary gold mining operations were set up at Busang after
Bre-X Minerals collapsed and closed its doors. This trommel operation,
called "common people mining" by the locals, has been operating since
1998.

Today, gold is being mined from the ground in small amounts.

It's a back-breaking process that takes several hours and will be
repeated many times. Here are the steps:

1. Earth pulled from a depth of 30 metres is put into six drums along
with a steel pipe which separates the soil from rock. The material is
rolled around for about two hours.

2. Quick silver is added to the drums. The highly toxic liquid mercury
binds together the flecks of gold separated from the rock. The mixture
inside churns for another 20 minutes.

3. The drums are emptied and a long, slow process of filtering occurs.
The silvery soup is poured into buckets and washed over and over by
hand until there's nothing left but a fine sediment. The sediment is
poured into a handkerchief and all the liquid is wrung out.

4. A silver-coloured ball is placed in a tiny container and a white,
powdery chemical is sprinkled on top. A manual blow torch, operated
with a foot pump, burns off impurities and exposes the bullion. The
mine workers say the tiny 3.5 grams of pure gold will be sold to a
dealer for about $50.

-- Suzanne Wilton, Calgary Herald

Studying the Hoax: Theories on How The Bre-X Tampering Scam Was Carried Out

Beginnings: According to an independent study by Toronto-based
Strathcona Mineral Services, the salting -- or the act of adding
outside gold dust to rock before it can be tested in a laboratory --
is believed to have begun as early as 1993 in Busang's central zone
using a combination of gold and copper. The scheme later became more
sophisticated, relying on finer- quality river gold obtained from
local Dayak panners.

Open Bags: Canadian geologists who worked for Bre-X said it was
routine for open bags of exploration core samples to pile up in a
billiards room at the company's office in the Indonesian city of
Samarinda, prior to being shipped to a testing lab in nearby
Balikpapan.

Odd Practice: It is virtually unheard of in the mining industry to
open core sample bags, due to the possible risk of contamination, but
witnesses say senior geologist Cesar Puspos defended the practice as
necessary in order to maintain the quality of the rock and prevent bag
breakage.

Job Strategy: Strathcona president Graham Farquharson believes the
hoax began as a "job preservation strategy" that spiralled out of
control.

"The larger it got, the more difficult the exit plan became," he says.
"When it started, I don't think anybody envisioned that it would grow
into the humongous enterprise it became."

Laying Blame: Forensic Investigative Associates -- retained by Bre-X
in 1997 to look into the scheme -- directly blamed geologist Michael
de Guzman. FIA alleges the Bre-X exploration manager instructed
Puspos, his right-hand man, and a handful of other trusted
conspirators to salt core samples, likely late at night when no one
else was around the Samarinda office.

-- Tamara Gignac, Calgary Herald

The Quest for Gold

For thousands of years, humans have searched for the most precious of metals

- Gold cups and jewelry made as early as 3500 BC have been dug up in
Mesopotamia (now Iraq).

- The pharaohs of ancient Egypt wore garments made with thin threads
of gold. Some fabrics had up to 500 gold threads per inch of cloth.

- During the Middle Ages, alchemists tried to convert other metals
such as lead into gold, laying the foundation for today's chemistry.

- European exploration of the Americas was fuelled by reports of gold
ornaments worn by native American people in Central America, Peru and
Colombia.

- Throughout history, gold rushes have followed the discovery of most
large deposits. In 1850, so many miners had laid claims in California
that the territory had enough people to be admitted as a state. The
Yukon gold rush in the late 1890s drew nearly 30,000 prospectors to
the banks of the Klondike.

- The largest gold nugget still in existence was discovered in
Victoria, Australia, in 1980. The Hand of Faith weighs 27 kilograms
and is on display at a Las Vegas casino.

- The largest nugget ever found (again in Australia) weighed 78
kilograms; when melted down, it produced 71 kilograms of pure gold.

- The Federal Reserve Bank of New York holds the world's largest
accumulation of gold.

The vault is 25 metres under the street and holds $147 billion US worth of gold.

-- Compiled by Andrea Caza, Calgary Herald

Bre-X: 10 Years Later

Gold, Deceit and Unfinished Business

Day 1: 10 years, 10 lives:

Lies were told. Blood was spilled. Fortunes were won and lost. The
Herald looks back at the intrigue of Bre-X over the past 10 years
through the eyes of 10 people from Calgary to Southeast Asia.

Day 2: The Mystery of Michael de Guzman: Did he jump, or was he
pushed? How Michael de Guzman's infamous plunge from a helicopter to
the Borneo jungle below started the precipitous Bre-X share freefall.

Day 3: The tribulations and trial of John Felderhof

The last man standing from the Bre-X inner sanctum, senior
vice-president Felderhof awaits a July verdict on charges he violated
Ontario securities law.

Day 4: The town of Bre-X millionaires

Gold fever swept through tiny St. Paul, Alta., creating many
bullion-driven millionaires. Some sold their shares early and
prospered. Others watched their fortunes evaporate.

Today: Back to Busang

It's exotic, remote and dangerous. But the Indonesian jungle is
reputedly rife with gold, which made it the perfect place to pull off
an unprecedented mining hoax.

Go Online:

For exclusive bonus material on Bre-X, including video, photographs
and interviews, please log on to calgaryherald.com

- View a slideshow and exclusive video clips of the journey to Busang
taken by the Herald's Suzanne Wilton and Ted Rhodes

- Click through our interactive map

© (c) CanWest MediaWorks Publications Inc.