Former
Canadian gold prospecting company. They announced a massive find of gold in the
Busang region of
Indonesia. It was "The Gold Find of the Century", of 71 million ounces of gold worth US$24 Billion. Thousands of people bought stock in the company, leading to a
stock frenzy. Bre-X was so well known that it was used in the calculation of the
TSE 300 stock index.
In May 1997 the Bre-X find was shown to be a complete
fraud. Core samples had been "salted" with
alluvial gold. Investors saw billions of stock valuation disappear overnight. The
geologist accused of tampering with the core samples mysteriously fell to his death from of a helicopter into the Indonesian jungle. The corporate officers denied all knowledge of any fraud, despite getting out while the stock was still flying high.
It was initially suspected that the geologist, Michael de Guzman, had faked his death or had been murdered to keep him silent. An 8 page suicide note was found, and a
decomposed body was found in a jungle swamp along the helicopter flight path that was later inconclusively identified as de Guzman. No proof exists to support a
faked death or
murder, but it is notable that in his supposed suicide note he misspelled his own wife's name.