Home · Economy & Business · Business · Stranger than Fiction: The Bre-X Gold Scandal
Topic spans: 1996 - 2000
Stranger than Fiction: The Bre-X Gold Scandal
It had all the elements of a great novel: a dramatic rags to riches story, a mysterious suicide (or was it murder?) and a scandalous international fraud. But the Bre-X saga wasn't fiction — much to the chagrin of the many who lost money in 1997. Thousands of investors were duped by the small Calgary-based mining company that falsely claimed to have struck gold in Indonesia.
8 television clips
5 radio clips
David Walsh dies
Broadcast Date: June 5, 1998
David Walsh, founder and CEO of Bre-X, died yesterday at the age of 52 as a result of a brain aneurysm. Although his career ended in disgrace, Northern Miner editor Vivian Danielson remembers him rather fondly. She tells CBC Radio's Avril Benoit, "There was something about David Walsh, surprisingly, that was quite likeable — he had a boyish sort of charm about him."Danielson says she'll have two lasting impressions of Walsh — the first was the "David Walsh with the cigarette in one hand, the beer in the other, just pressing the flesh and just absolutely enjoying the adulation that came his way when Bre-X was flying high." The other image, she says, is the "pit bull" who maintained vigorously that there actually was gold in Busang, even in the face of such compelling evidence that there wasn't.
David Walsh dies
• Walsh was residing at his home in the Bahamas with his wife Jeannette when he died.• Upon his death, most of the writers and experts who closely followed the Bre-X story were still unsure of whether Walsh actually knew about the salting scam. As one Canadian Press story explained, he will be "viewed by bitter investors as either the biggest crook or the biggest fool in mining history."
• Northern Miner editor Danielson wasn't the only journalist who had somewhat positive memories of Walsh. In Diane Francis's book Bre-X: The Inside Story, Francis quotes Calgary Sun columnist Joe Warmington reminiscing about Walsh: "To me he was this gruff guy with a soup stain on his shirt, but interesting to talk to. He told me it was never about the money for him. It was to be part of something so historic and special. People laugh, but I tend to believe that."
• Walsh's death meant that John Felderhof, Bre-X's senior vice-president in charge of exploration, was the only major player in the saga left to deal with the consequences. Felderhof had moved to the Cayman Islands after the scandal broke, and refrained from all media interviews.
David Walsh dies
Medium: Radio
Program: This Morning
Broadcast Date: June 5, 1998
Guest(s): Vivian Danielson
Host: Avril Benoît
Duration: 12:42
Last updated:
Feb. 19, 2004
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13 clips in this topic . page
Television
3:21
Oct. 19, 1987
An outbreak of panic-selling sparks the biggest one-day market crash in history.
Television
2:43
March 26, 1997
Bre-X shareholders are shocked to learn that there may be no gold in the Indonesian deposits that made company stock soar.
Topic from Radio-Canada
For Teachers - Educational activities
External sites
bre-x · gold · calgary · david walsh · john felderhof · gold mining
David could not have known about the failure of Bu-sang too far in advance. He was my dear cousin and there is no way he would have let our family lose so much. Many family members including his brother and sisters purchased stock when it was five cents a share to help him get started. And then bought more in 1995. Along with others my immediate family lost everything - four houses, a business and over USD1,000,000 actual funds. His aunt, my mother, had to spend her final two years in a Medicaid bed, with no money for an aide. Here we are 10 years later and several of us are still destitute.
Submitted by: max843