The man's enigma behind the $1 billion gold scame

A rush to invest in a mining business was sparked by its claim that it had found an enormous gold mine deep in the Indonesian rainforest. A new podcast series exposes that not everything that seemed promising was really worth it, and there are still unanswered concerns around the unexplained death of the company's head geologist.

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Chief geologist Michael de Guzman of the Canadian mining corporation Bre-X Minerals took a chopper early on March 19, 1997, to a remote Indonesian rainforest location.

He had been there several times before, claiming to have discovered enormous gold reserves.

But de Guzman never showed up this time.

After twenty minutes of travel, the helicopter's left rear door opened, and de Guzman was gone, falling to his death into the thick undergrowth below.

The mining company's CEO said that de Guzman had committed himself after learning he had hepatitis B and was worn out from battling malaria on a regular basis.

A decade thereafter, the Calgary Herald sent Canadian writer Suzanne Wilton to look into De Guzman's death.

"I was sent to a continent apart... I've been tormented by this tale ever since," she claims.

She is now back investigating the events leading up to the tragic helicopter ride for a new audio series.

On February 14, 1956, De Guzman was born in the Philippines. A fitting birthday, considering how infatuated he was. He may have had as many as four wives at the same time, living in several nations.

An accomplished geologist, de Guzman thought he might strike it rich in Indonesia. He loved strip clubs, drinking, karaoke, and wearing gold.

Because of its abundant natural mineral resources, the nation was seen as a gold prospector's paradise in the 1990s, according to Wilton.

John Felderhof, a Dutchman who was dubbed the Indiana Jones of geologists, thought an isolated location near Busang, in the Borneo province of East Kalimantan, was a goldmine just waiting to be discovered. But in order to proceed, he required money.

Felderhof made an agreement with Bre-X Minerals' CEO, David Walsh, in April 1993. Walsh was tasked with pitching prospective investors on the idea of a location rich in hidden riches.

with charge of ground operations, Felderhof made it apparent that he wanted friend and colleague geologist de Guzman, a project partner, to assist with the hunt.

To find out whether the gold was indeed there, Felderhof, de Guzman, and their group had until December 18, 1993, to dig test holes. At that point, the Indonesian government's exploration license for them ran out.

Even after two holes were drilled and a few days remained before the deadline, there was still no trace of gold. Then, according to Wilton, de Guzman abruptly informed Walsh that he had a dream that had shown him the exact area they needed to drill.

Precisely where de Guzman had indicated, the group bored a third hole and hit gold. Opening a fourth hole offered the chance for an even bigger discovery.

The Multibillionaire Gold Fraud

It was the largest-ever hoax involving a gold mine that destroyed innumerable lives. However, what really transpired?

Additionally, you may listen to the series wherever you receive podcasts if you're not in the UK.

BBC Audio

The site was under construction for the next three years. The number of investors increased along with estimates of the quantity of gold present. Bre-X Minerals' stock price started to skyrocket, rising from 20 cents to C$280 (US$206; £163). After all, the firm was worth C$6 billion (US$4.4 billion; £3.5 billion).

Thousands of residents of tiny Canadian communities invested hundreds of thousands of dollars of their savings during the gold rush.

However, the luster eventually wore off.

Suharto, the president of Indonesia at the time, made a decision at the beginning of 1997 that a tiny business like Bre-X Minerals could no longer control the property exclusively and profit from it. It required assistance from a bigger, more seasoned mining company as well as sharing with the Indonesian government. Thus, an agreement was reached with the US business Freeport-McMoRan.

Freeport-McMoRan has to do its own due diligence prior to consenting to assume all of the financial risks related to the mining of precious metals. Its geologists were sent to the Busang deposit to drill two holes in it. By drilling near to the location where gold has been discovered and collecting rock samples, twinning is a method of double-checking the presence of gold.

Though Bre-X Minerals had not yet implemented it, this was typical procedure in the mining industry.

Two other laboratories received the twinning samples, but each returned the same negative results: there were no gold traces.

What does this entail for those who put their money into investments?

Freeport-McMoRan notified Felderhof and Walsh with the updated information. De Guzman was at a conference in Toronto when they gave him the order to come back to Busang and meet with the Freeport-McMoRan team to provide an explanation.

De Guzman left Canada and traveled to Singapore, where he saw his wife Genie, with whom he had a daughter and a son.

Since then, Jennifer Wells, a fellow Canadian journalist, has put together his last hours.

She claims that de Guzman spent his last night with Bre-X Minerals employee Rudy Vega in the city of Balikpapan, which is located more than 100 miles (161 km) south of the Busang mine.

Vega was scheduled to fly with de Guzman to confront Freeport-McMoRan. She was a member of the company's Filipino exploratory team.

The two headed to a karaoke club, according to Vega's subsequent explanation to Indonesian authorities. According to Vega, de Guzman made an attempt at suicide after going back to his hotel room.

De Guzman and Vega took a helicopter the next morning to Samarinda, which is a city that is closer to Busang.

After that, De Guzman got back on the chopper and headed toward the mine, but Vega did not go with him.

De Guzman was flying with two men: a pilot and a maintenance technician. However, the pilot that made the flight to the Busang mine was not the typical pilot; rather, it was an Indonesian air force pilot. Samarinda was an unusual place to halt; normally, de Guzman would fly directly from Balikpapan to Busang.

The pilot hasn't spoken much about the trip after making his first comments at the time. However, according to Wilton, he has said that he was not there when it occurred and has denied any responsibility for what happened to de Guzman.

On March 19, 1997, around 10:30 local time, de Guzman had passed away.

Four days after the corpse was discovered in the vast bush, handwritten suicide notes were discovered in the chopper.

Investors were left in sorrow as the Busang gold fantasy came to an end for everyone six weeks after de Guzman's death.

The C$6 billion value of Bre-X Minerals has been whittled down to nothing.

An impartial assessment would verify that the Busang location had no gold at all. After being examined, it was discovered that rock samples from 1995 to 1997 had been altered using a procedure known as salting. To manipulate the findings, pieces of gold from an unidentified source had been strewn among rock samples using a saltshaker.

Nobody has ever been prosecuted for the fraud, even after over 30 years has passed.

Walsh said he was unaware of anything and passed away in 1998 from a stroke. A Canadian court found Felderhof not guilty of insider trading in 2007 after ruling that he had not known about the scam. In 2019, the Dutch geologist passed away.

This returns us to de Guzman. Had he killed himself so he wouldn't have to admit he was the brains behind the scheme?

According to Wilton, his suicide notes are concerning.

According to Suzanne Felderhof, Felderhof's cousin once removed, he had doubts about de Guzman's ability to have authored them.

The physical illnesses mentioned in the documents are something her relative claims she has never heard him complain about.

According to Wilton, de Guzman was unaware of another suicide note that was sent to a financial manager at Bre-X Minerals. One of de Guzman's wives' names was misspelled in it.

The family of de Guzman recruited Dr. Benito Molino, one of the Filipino investigators, to go over the material after the autopsy findings were made public.

Molino claims to have seen neck injuries in the photos of the corpse discovered in the bush and deduced that de Guzman had been strangled to death.

"When he was dead, he must have been dumped out of the chopper in the jungle to make it believe he committed suicide," Molino shares with the podcast.

"In big crimes, there continues to be a fall guy, so we have no confidence that the real mastermind will be identified."

Or was it even de Guzman's body?

According to the first descriptions, it seems the person had been dead for more than four days, which is how long it took for the corpse to be found, says Dr. Richard Taduran, a forensic anthropologist who collaborated with Molino.

Genie, the spouse of De Guzman, claims that while her husband had prosthetic teeth, the teeth on the corpse that was discovered was undamaged. De Guzman's family has never made his dental records available, according to Wilton.

Genie de Guzman's friend, geologist Mansur Geiger, claims she informed him her husband was still alive and had fled to South America. Geiger thinks he's settled in the Cayman Islands at this point.

Might de Guzman have made plans to pick up a corpse to bring on the last plane in order to stage his own demise? Was he ever even able to board the helicopter?

The boy he shared with Genie has been informed by his mother that his father could still be alive.

Like his father, he works as a geologist and is committed to carrying on his heritage, but in the proper manner this time.

Michael de Guzman Jr. remarks, "Maybe I could start my own mines." "Acquire some financiers and... excel as Mike de Guzman."