It is not FINRA's job to verify the existence of mines. And as long as the OTC market exists with its thousands of concurrent scams, the SEC could not possibly begin to investigate even a fraction of them. Yes, it is nice to think of the Feds as John Wayne, but how many John Waynes does it take to slap down these gangs of organized con-men?
In the meantime, it takes amateur sleuths to figure out the connections and schemes going on here. And it takes enough angry investors to file complaints to get "John Wayne" to start poking around.