24. Fools Gold: The Bre-X Gold Fraud Scandal

In 1996, Canadian businessman Adam Walsh was the owner of one of the highest valued junior mining companies in North America, which had several major mining companies bidding for shares and many mutual fund companies and independent investors piling money into stock. Bre-X was sitting on once of the greatest gold discoveries of the century, a deposit in Busang, Indonesia with an estimated 200 million oz of gold (worth roughly 300 billion dollars today) ready to be tapped into.

But when one of the invested mining companies sent their own geologists to perform due diligence at the mining site, they didn’t find any gold. Instead, an investigation was launched into what is now known as the biggest mining and gold scandals of all time and one of the truest examples of fraud in history.

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Case Sources:

https://www.mbaknol.com/business-ethics/case-study-bre-x-scandal-the-6-billion-gold-fraud/

Building a province : 60 Alberta lives by Brian Brennan

Bre-X: The lure of false gold. By: Henchek, Catherine F., Engineering & Mining Journal (00958948), 00958948, Jun98, Vol. 199, Issue 6

The Bre-X Scandal: A History Timeline by Jess Desjardins for the visual capitalist

Christopher C. Nicholls, 'The Bre-X Hoax: A South East Asian Bubble' (1999) 32(2) Canadian Business Law Journal 173

Chicago 17th ed. Jeffrey G. MacIntosh, "Lessons of Bre-X (?) Some Comments," Canadian Business Law Journal 32, no. 2 (October, 1999): 223-240

Jeffrey Drozdiak, "Bre-X, NI 43-101 and the Effectiveness of Regulating Mineral Project Disclosure in Canada," Canadian Business Law Journal 60, no. 3 (June 2018): 343-384

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/bre-x-collapses

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/1.3952120

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/felderhof-acquitted-on-bre-x-securities-charges-1.680227

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/felderhof-braces-for-bre-x-verdict-1.677324

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bre-x-trial-finally-begins-felderhof-pleads-not-guilty-1.201705

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bre-x-lawsuits-dismissed-17-years-after-mining-scandal-1.2619478

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68987824

Book: Fever: The Dark Mystery of the Bre-X Gold Rush by Jennifer Wells

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bre-X

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/bre-x.asp

https://www.miningnewsnorth.com/story/2023/01/06/mining-history/the-biggest-canadian-gold-hoax-of-all-time/7698.html

https://www.cba-alberta.org/Publications-Resources/Resources/Law-Matters/Law-Matters-Summer-2017/Bre-X-The-Calgary-based-Stock-Scandal-Still-Making

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-may-12-fi-36400-story.html

https://financialpost.com/legal-post/bre-x-class-action-settlement-approved-investors-get-fraction-of-losses

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-bre-x-scandal-led-development-jorc-ni-43-101-ian-du-plessis-

https://financialpost.com/commodities/mining/john-felderhof-geologist-who-played-central-role-in-bre-x-scandal-dead-at-79

https://globalnews.ca/news/6094293/bre-x-felderhof-philippines-death/

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/the-law-page/the-bre-x-case-finally-closes/article18124172/

https://www.miningnewsnorth.com/story/2023/01/06/mining-history/the-biggest-canadian-gold-hoax-of-all-time/7698.html

https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/bre-x-the-real-story-and-scandal-that-inspired-the-movie-gold

BBC and CBC podcast: The Six Billion Dollar Gold Scam (2024) hosted by Suzanne Wilton

Personal communication: Dan the rock man