I think Smith was more as a pawn in the game. Used for his credentials, to lend a sense of legitimacy to Kabe and PGI.
He's been trying to take his drilling consulting business public for a while. He backed out of an earlier RM with Discovery Minerals after IHub posters alerted him to some possible shenanigans there.
He posts under the handle "inwestor1", although we didn't know that during the PGI days. We thought it was Gandy.