Mining stock scams are run everyday, and have been increasing as the price of gold has risen.
And only a few people that run them ever get caught, and most of those find ways to hide the money they took from the victims who believe their lies and bought the stock they were pumping and dumping long before the authorities catch up to them.
There are lots of examples post Bre-X. No shortage of them whatsoever, especially because mining scams seem easier to run that other types because so few investors have much of a clue about what real mining stocks look like. They are easy prey for gold stock scammers.
Take Petro America. They also claimed tens of billions in gold from properties where no required exploration work was conducted . The SEC and DOJ finally got to them, but not before billions of shares were dumped onto the victims, and tens of millions of dollars stolen, most of which is non-recoverable. The stock is completely worthless.
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