Bre-X Minerals Ltd.

[maplesyrup]

"Suahrto family had engineered the salting of the Bre-X gold mine drill samples in Indonesia with gold to make it appear that gold quantities were sufficiently high to make it the most profitable gold mine of the 20th century. The geologist was pushed out of a helicopter, the death conveniently ruled an "accident" by corrupt Indonesian authorities.

As it turned out, it ended up being the world's biggest mining scam, bringing down a huge Canadian mining venture, incriminating its naive owners who had little understanding of Indonesia's real business practices and who in fact were the unwitting black sheep in this scam perpetrated by one of the world's most powerful families, and causing many investors to lose hundreds of millions of dollars. Had the operation gone ahead, the Suharto family would have made billions of dollars in profits selling the inflated stock before anyone found out about the truth. Bjornstrom, however, knew the truth and Tommy had put out a contract to have him killed. Hence, he escaped from prison to hide out in the thick forest in British Columbia where he was sure that Indonesian hitmen from the country's secret service could not get him. As it was, even Canadian authorities with good knowledge of the forest and its difficult conditions had a very difficult time in capturing him and the capture ultimately involved a ruse using his sister.

The south Jakarta house where police arrested Tommy. He was sleeping at the time and did not resist arrest, said police.

Since the jail break, Bjornstrom had roamed the shorelines, hills and high alpine ranges of the north Shuswap, eking out an existence on goods plundered from summer cabins. He stole food and other items useful for survival in the country's deep and unforgiving bush. He did leave messages on cassette tapes explaining why he was doing what he did and they were not threatening to anyone. He did explain in his clandestine communications left to the cabin owners that if he returned to jail the Indonesians would arrange to have him killed because he knew too much about the Suharto family's strategy for the ill-fated mining venture.

Bjornstrom said he was afraid for his life because he had the knowledge of the events that led to the collapse of the Bre-X company and that there was a reward from Tommy to see his extinction. Indonesian police confirmed the truth to Bjornstrom's story in the press conference.

http://www.geocities.com/aroki.geo/0112/IN...yditangkap.html

In their rush to jump abord the Bre-X bandwagon in its heyday, the Ontario Securies Commission put aside their common sense, and sound financial business practices, and wrongly included Bre-X in their top 30 Index of Stocks .

When Bre-X came tumbling down, of course the OSE had egg all over their face, and had to quickly find a scapegoat. What better person to find as their scapegoat that the Bre-X CEO Calgarian David Walsh (now deceased) the guy that made it all happen, and to a lessor extent the company geologist, the guy who hung out in Indonesia, John Felderhof .

The OSE are about to release a report on their internal probe of mutual fund dealings. Don't believe a word of it.

With the greed factor alive and well, and showing no signs of soon abatting, another Bre-X could happen any time and probably will.

The Suharto family played everyone for fools - the Bre-X entourage, Barrick Gold including Peter Monk, Brian Mulroney, and George Bush, Sr, both of whom were on Barrick's International Board of Directors, the SEC in the US, the OSE in Canada, the RCMP, Diane Frances journalist for the National/Financial Post, the authors of the many books on Bre-X, not one of whom BTW did any kind of quality investigative work, and had a clue as to what actually happened, and all the long investors.

I am curious to know who the short investors were. Perhaps that will come out at the OSE VS Felderhof trail for insider trading shortly about to resume.

[maplesyrup]

Ivan victim: For 2 days `I cried a lot'

This guy Felderhof has never returned to Canada since that fateful day was it 7 or 8 years ago, when Freeport McMoRan, or something like that, announced that there sample drilling test results showed no commerciallly viable gold deposit in Indonesia.

[maplesyrup]

And speaking of Freeport McMoRan, the company that was awarded the controlling interest to develop the Bre-X gold mine in Indonesia, by the ruling Suharto family, here's a little blurb on this outstanding US transnational:

Freeport McMoRan: Mining New Guinea

"[Freeport has] killed it. They've taken our land and our grandparents land. They ruined the mountains. We can't drink our water anymore."

- Tom Beanal, Amungme leader, Irian Jaya

New Orleans-based Freeport McMoRan is a leader among corporations in the shocking amount of environmental destruction and social chaos that it has caused.

Freeport is responsible for the dumping of over 120,000 tonnes of toxic mine waste into the rivers of Irian Jaya (Indonesian New Guinea) every single day. By 1998 Freeport plans to increase the quantity of ''tailings'' -- mining waste that contains toxic heavy metal concentrations -- to 200,000 tonnes a day that would go directly into the Ajkwa river system flowing through the mountains out to the Arafura sea.

[maplesyrup]

Here's more. what are we to make of companies that conduct themselves in this manner?:

The Mining Menace of Freeport McMoRan

Wasting the waters

Local grievances are rife in the area around Freeport's mine, probably the world's most controversial. Allegations of major environmental damage and human rights abuses have provoked investigations and protests in the United States and riots on the island itself.

Freeport McMoran has shaved off more than 120 meters of the 4,884 meter-high Puncuk Jaya Mountain -- the highest peak between the Himalayas and the Andes, lying approximately 90 kilometers to north of Koperapoka -- to extract copper and gold.

Vast quantities of ore-bearing rock from the world's largest gold mine and third-largest copper mine are ferried by an aerial tramway to a mill, where the ore is crushed and mixed with water and other additives to allow the metals to float to the surface. The concentrated slurry is then piped 112 kilometers away to the coastal town of Amamepare, where ships carry the precious cargo for further processing in Spain and Japan. Further refining yields some $7.2 million worth of metals every day.

The remaining waste from this operation -- more than 110,000 tonnes a day -- is dumped into the rivers that course down the mountain into the swamps below, where the indigenous Komoro peoples have lived in the village of Koperapoka for centuries. The name of the village is ironic because it is a Dutch bastardization of two Komoro words which mean "the place of the palm tree."

Environmentalists say that the palm trees were killed by the waste from the Freeport mine. And the Komoro say that that this is not the only impact of the waste. This January, Agnes Amai died in a small two-room shanty house in Koperapoka. Her brothers say that abscesses developed on her face and armpits a day or two before she collapsed.

:angry:

[maplesyrup]

U.S. Senate Continues Restrictions on Military Assistance for Indonesia

And it is not as if the US government is not aware of Freeport's activities as the above article suggests.

[maplesyrup]

If nothing else does, this should open your eyes;

"Who are the Terrorists Here?" Ashcroft in Indonesia

[maplesyrup]

An interesting side bar issue is former Canadian Prime Minister Brain Mulroney's involvement with the mining industry. And you all thought the Canadian boycott of South African products was because Mulroney was against apartheid, eh. What a sick joke! :angry:

The way it works is like this:

If I am a gold mining company outside of South Africa, like say Peter Monk's Barrick Gold, and you wanted to crush your competition, what better way to do that that get a Canadian prime minister to lead a mission of boycotting South African products, all in the name of fighting apartheid. Not a bad strategy especially to get credibility for the campaign if you can get a Canadian prime minister to lead the charge. Good ol "Lyin Brian" to Barrick's rescue.

As you can see things are often not what they appear to be.

[maplesyrup]

FIA Interim Report

While I may agree with the geological findings in this report, there is no way I buy into the fact that Michael de Gouzman committed suicide.

Either he was thrown from the helicoptor by Tommy Suharto's people, or his death was faked, and he is alive and well living in the Phillipines.

[maplesyrup]

Tommy Suharto jailed for murder

Tommy Suharto, former Indonesian President Suharto's son, is in jail for i5 years for murder.

Tommy Suharto ran the helicoptor company, and operated the helicoptor, from where the Bre-X geologist was supposed to have jumped. The flight crew was changed to military officers, at the last minute, just prior to takeoff.

Does anyone still really believe Michael de Gouzman committed suicide?

[maplesyrup]

THE BRE-X FRAUD

Some of the actual losers were the authors of the several books on Bre-X, who never once explored the possibilities who was behind this massive mining fraud. Authors such as Goold and Willis didn't have a clue, and never entertained for a second, that it was connected to the Indonesian Royal Family - the Suhartos.

This is so typical of the business community. One person, in this case let's say Diane Frances at the National Post, gets an idea and everyone loses their own thinking processes and climbs on board.

The Canadian business community has egg all over its face because of the Bre-X scandal, so they needed a scapegoat to try and justify their own greedy behaviour. They could care less who the scapegoat is, or whether or not they were involved, as as it takes the Establishment off the hook. Only in this case it is beginning to look worse and worse for the Canadian Business Establishment.

[maplesyrup]

Just think about this:

Who in their right mind would name a fraudulent activity after one of their own children? David Walsh the man behind Bre-X, named the company after his second child, Brett Walsh (Walsh named the original company, the parent company Bresea Resources after his two children).

And John Felderhof, quite frankly was too stupid to have engineered such a massive fraud in the first place.

Nope sorry folks, but the Canadian business community will not get their pound of flesh by persuing these fruitless trails that are utter nonsense, without a shred of substance, as to either of their cupabilities.

Walsh and Felderhof were victims of this giant fraud by the Suharto family, just like the many investors that lost money on Bre-X (BTW lots of people made money on Bre-X as well).

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear maplesyrup,

Bre-X is pretty much a dead issue, which is why you are talking to yourself here. It certainly isn't seen as anything near Enron, et al.

I saw Mr. Walsh frequently in a bar in Calgary, where I was the kitchen manager. It was just 2 blocks from Bre-X's head office in Kensington. In his last days, he was in a sorry state. Puffy and red-faced, pickled in scotch. I kind of felt sorry for him, as one time he was ranting about how unfairly the media was treating his son. I thought of saying to him, "Relax, man, that is what the media does. It doesn't have the 'truth' as it's main priority, it is first and foremost out to make money".

[maplesyrup]

tfb....you got that right, about the media that is, although Kelly Crow and the CBC I thought provided reasonable coverage.

Yea and Beethoven was blind. Yes, and if I was taken advantage of, and made a fool of by mafia types, and inadvertently my kids get caught up in the situation, I might do more than a bit of drinking myself. That is probably what eventually killed Walsh - the way his kids were being drawn into the shame of it all.

Actually considering the circumstances, Bre-X management did extremely well.

Whatever happened about that incident concerning Walsh's son? Wasn't it about some moronic journalist who jumped out the bushes and startled them, and Walsh's son pounded him out as he thought it was an attempted physical assault on his father, or something like that?

[maplesyrup]

The Short History of Fabulous Bre-X Minerals

Not a bad summary.

tfb.....I think the basic difference between Bre-X and Enron is that with Enron it was some of the corporate executives themselves who were the crooks, whereas with Bre- X it seems that it was the executives of the company that got screwed just like "joe" investor.

[maplesyrup]

What I would really like to see is for that Bushman of BC to write a book. It would expose all those other so-called expert authors, for the unprofessional abilities which have seriously misled the Canadian public about what really happened with Bre-X. :angry:

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear maplesyrup,

What I would really like to see is for that Bushman of BC to write a book.

That is a very strange wish.

[maplesyrup]

tfb....why do you say that? This guy seems to be one person who is talking about what has really happened.

'BUSHMAN' OF THE SHUSWAP

Cartman on another thread suggested his Dad was a bit eccentric because he did not watch TV.

Let me be clear there is no comparison being made here.

But just because this Bushman guy is a bit different from your average Canadian, whatever an average Canadian is, does not mean we should discount what he he knows or has to say.

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear maplesyrup,

tfb....why do you say that?

I do not watch tv, (well, maybe a couple of hours of news per month) and also am thought a bit weird. However, I think that to take up a lifestyle of banditry and 'whacking off in the woods' doesn't make me want to hear what he has to say.

[maplesyrup]

If I had people like the Suharto family connections looking for me I might want to live in the bush as well, although I would prefer not to be fed to the wild boars like it appears Michael de Guzman was!

[maplesyrup]

Unreported Felderhof trades alleged

He is the only Bre-X insider to face any kind of charges relating to the stock market scam. He will have to answer eight counts of breaching securities laws in a Toronto courtroom next month.

  In detailing its allegations of wrongdoing, the Ontario Securities Commission said that Mr. Felderhof sold $83.9-million worth of Bre-X shares between April 24 and Sept. 10, 1996.

  Yet insider trading reports show he reported sales of only $49.2-million for that period. That leaves $34.7-million in trades unaccounted for.

  Insiders in all publicly listed companies are obliged by law to fill out sheets disclosing all trades in their own company's shares to the regulator.

  Joseph Groia, Mr. Felderhof's lawyer, said he could not explain the discrepancy because he has not yet seen the information on which the commission is basing its case.

  "We don't know how the OSC calculated its numbers and until we know that, I don't know whether comparing it to the insider trading reports makes sense or not," Mr. Groia said.

  But the commission's top cop said the allegations speak for themselves.

  "We're alleging that we can prove there were $83.9-million worth of trades," said Michael Watson, the OSC's director of enforcement. "Because it's subject to prosecution, I can't go into details of the evidence but you can conclude --and we have evidence -- that that much was traded."

  The OSC has said its investigation is continuing.

  Putting a dollar figure on how much money Bre-X insiders made selling company stock is key for investors hoping to recover something from a Canadian class-action, now that a judge has ruled deep-pocketed brokerage houses can't be sued as part of that lawsuit.

  "The issue of the number of shares sold is a live issue for us," said Harvey Strosberg, the Windsor, Ont., lawyer leading the Canada-wide class-action lawsuit. "We're looking into that.

  "Our theory has been all along that this was part of a conspiracy to inflate the price of the shares. Selling the shares was obviously an important part of that plan." The lawsuit has been certified against the bankrupt company and its insiders.

  The Financial Post has learned that Mr. Felderhof, a resident of the Cayman Islands, did most of his trading through what was then Deacon Capital Corp. in Toronto. It is now Dundee Securities Corp.

  Sources said some of Mr. Felderhof's trades were jitneyed through an institutional brokerage in New York -- meaning the Canadian brokerage would have asked the U.S. firm to execute the trade on its behalf. Jitneying, a legal practice, nevertheless makes the seller more difficult to trace.

As I have said before this guy Felderhof was incompetent, and why Walsh ever got involved with him I guess we will never know for sure.

Anyway Felderhof broke some insider trading laws or he didn't. You have to ask yourself why this court case is being spun out over a period of years. If he is found guilty though I hope he gets jail time, and they send a bounty hunter down to the Cayman Islands to drag him back to Canada to do the time. Did you know once Freeport announced there was no gold, Felderhof fled Canada and never ever has returned since. Does that tell you something about what kind of person he is? The Calgary guy, the Bre-X CEO hung around and faced the press, the RCMP, the Securities Commissions, etc.

Maybe having a coward for a partner like Felderhof is what killed him.

[maplesyrup]

Article

Criminal Defences

The following discussion is not always considered an essential element of an introductory course in criminology. However, in addition to providing an overview of the essential elements of a criminal defence, it show criminal law has converted informal rules and common law principles into formal criminal law sanctions. It also illustrates that law is flexible.What may appear to be a criminal offence (based on the evidence) may not holdup in court. Examples, that may readily come to mind include O.J. Simpson,David Walsh and Bre-X, Albert Walker and Sue Rodriguez.[19]

Interesting article - who is Albert Walker?

[maplesyrup]

Bre-X was an Alberta company, or was it?

[maplesyrup]

So Bre-X is a winner after all:

BRE X DEBUTS AT FRASER DOWNS OPENING

[ticker]

Bre-X was an Alberta company, or was it?

the NEP was an eastern Liberal policy; or was it ?

[caesar]

the NEP was an eastern Liberal policy; or was it ?

Yes, and a good and fair one that has concerns for our environment. There is more to consider than

Albertans greed for money