Alto Group Holdings Inc fka ALTO

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Basically this is the cause of the fall:
http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsgs.aspx?subjectid=56078&msgnum=2245&batchsize=10&batchtype=Previous
UPDATED: Jan. 6, 2007
BUSINESS
Mining claim still in doubt after hearing
JOHN STARK

More than 18 months have passed since a federal hearing on his legal effort to get ownership of a longabandoned Whatcom County gold mine, but Douglas McFarland of East Wenatchee says he remains optimistic that his claim will be approved.

The Excelsior Mine, in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest along Wells Creek less than a mile south of Nooksack Falls, hasn’t produced any gold or silver since 1916. But under the terms of the U.S. Mining Act of 1872, McFarland can get full title to the property — known as a fee patent — if he can demonstrate that it can be mined profitably. McFarland has held a mining claim for the 20-acre site since the 1970s.

The Bureau of Land Management, which administers the 1872 law, is opposing McFarland’s fee patent application. Both the BLM and McFarland argued the case in a federal administrative proceeding in spring 2005. Neither McFarland nor Brian Perron, who argued the case for BLM, had any estimate of when a ruling in the matter might be forthcoming.

In the meantime, a small, publicly traded mining company touted its connection with McFarland and Excelsior in press releases apparently aimed at potential investors.

In June 2006, International Precious Minerals Group of Colorado issued a press release announcing the hiring of McFarland as its vice president of exploration and production.

In August, the company announced it was “in the final stages of signing a joint venture agreement” with McFarland’s Excelsior Mining Corp., for development of “two gold and silver properties with known reserves” in Washington state. The same release referred to the Excelsior Mine as “a large tonnage gold and silver deposit.”

International Precious Minerals is one of many small companies whose stock trades in the over-the-counter market, and penny-stock investors discuss its prospects with one another via online bulletin boards.

Examination of business records available online indicates that International Precious Minerals began selling stock in the spring of 2005, using the abandoned corporate shell of a defunct company called Number Nine Visual Technology Corp. The stock opened at about 12 cents a share and headed down from there. It is currently available at four-tenths of a cent per share.

McFarland said he has since resigned from International Precious Minerals, and neither he nor Excelsior Mining Corp. has a relationship with the Colorado firm.

McFarland has said he would likely use a cyanide process to recover precious metal from a small pit mine at the site, disposing of the waste by mixing it with cement and burying it in mineshafts dug there in the early part of the 20th century.

But he has also acknowledged that such a plan could face three to five years of environmental review.

Reach John Stark at 715-2274 or [e-mail].
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