About the Book

"The Golden Jungle - The mining scam that fooled the world" investigates the Bre-X scandal of 1997. A small Canadian company claimed to have found the largest gold deposit in history in the Busang jungle of Indonesia. Their stock went from pennies to $280. Financial writer David West details the fraud. Geologist Michael de Guzman was "salting" the core samples sprinkling gold dust from his wedding ring (and later purchased gold) into the rock. When auditors arrived, de Guzman "fell" from a helicopter. "The Golden Jungle" is a thriller about greed. It shows how major banks and pension funds were so desperate to believe in the treasure that they ignored every red flag, losing billions when the truth came out that there was no gold at all.