I'm not convinced the claims had/have economic potential. I suspect if they were as "rich" as claimed, smart mining companies would have snapped them up earlier. Sure there's gold and other metals there, but I doubt the extraction and processing cost will exceed the value by much, if at all.
It's the same story with almost every pinkie. If you have a good idea and a plan for executing, even if it's high risk, high reward, it's not that hard to find private investors. The ones that end up on the pinks are those that can't convince sophisticated investors, so they go for lots of small gullible ones.
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