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What was going by way of the thoughts of Filipino geologist Michael de Guzman as he boarded a helicopter to Busang in Indonesian Borneo within the spring of 1997? His vacation spot was the positioning of what was stated to be the most important gold discovery in historical past. Twenty minutes after take-off, the pilot heard a popping sound and felt a whoosh of air. When he circled, one of many rear doorways was open and de Guzman’s seat was empty.
Did he bounce, was he pushed or is there one other clarification? These are the questions underpinning The Six Billion Greenback Gold Rip-off, a podcast produced by the BBC World Service and CBC and hosted by Canadian journalist Suzanne Wilton, who has been reporting on the case on and off for 25 years.
The naked bones of the story are as follows: within the early Nineteen Nineties, a Canadian mining firm referred to as Bre-X Minerals, the place de Guzman was chief geologist, claimed to have discovered “the mom lode” within the Indonesian jungle. This prompted hundreds of buyers, from first-timers to millionaire financiers, to empty their wallets; share costs soared.
The positioning was onerous to entry, that means outsiders wanted the companies of the indigenous Dayak folks as guides. Its remoteness each added to its attract and made it prone to corruption; as information of the gold travelled around the world, mining firms needed a chunk of the pie, prompting them to embark on a appeal offensive with Indonesia’s president, the navy dictator Suharto.
Given the podcast’s title, it’s no spoiler to disclose that claims of a golden jackpot in Busang had been absolute nonsense, in the end resulting in the lack of livelihoods and life financial savings. Regardless of this, nobody was efficiently prosecuted. As for de Guzman, a tough drinker whose downtime was spent in strip golf equipment, many held him liable for tampering with samples that tricked the world into believing there was $6bn value of gold on the positioning.
You may see why this exceptional story of greed, intrigue and epic deceit has been catnip for storytellers: it’s already the topic of a guide and impressed the 2016 Hollywood film Gold, starring Matthew McConaughey. Wilton does an honest job of creating outdated materials really feel recent, although 9 episodes looks like too many. The Six Billion Greenback Gold Rip-off suffers not a lot from of a stretching of fabric as a want to incorporate each element and check every bit of proof; I can’t be the one listener to have fitfully misplaced monitor of the protracted negotiations and summits and the ever-expanding solid of males in fits.
Regardless of this, it’s value urgent on for the ultimate three episodes that yield new data and a suitably mind-blowing concept about de Guzman’s closing hours. In case you thought the rip-off story was good, the homicide thriller is pure gold.
bbc.co.uk
