World of Secrets presents: The Six Billion Dollar Gold Scam
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This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive.

If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Yemi Siedegoke, one of the hosts of World of Secrets. The next World of Secrets investigation will be released in a couple of months. But in the meantime, we want to give you the chance to hear one of our other investigative podcasts. It's a brilliant, intriguing and astonishing story. The tale of the biggest goldmine fraud of all time.

It's a scam that devastated countless lives, but no one has ever been held accountable. First published in 2024 from the BBC World Service and CBC, it's the story of the $6 billion gold scam. We'll be releasing episodes on Mondays starting from the 24th of February. Here's Suzanne Wilton to tell you more. 25 years ago, I traveled from Canada to the Borneo jungle to investigate a gold discovery. ♪

A small Canadian mining company from my hometown of Calgary called Briex sold the world a six billion dollar gold deposit. We were all as jealous as hell. Briex had found the one we all hoped to find. There was a frenzy and a sense of greed that I have not seen since in the markets.

The greed at the time was just off the charts. So much money at stake and so much money to be made and so many dreams that people couldn't let go of. But it was too good to be true. As a geologist, you learn something very early on. And that is you don't fool nature. You only fool people. Nature comes back at you.

Thousands of people were conned. It destroyed lives, devastated families and communities. We lost everything. My husband was sick for four years. We worked hard for our money. Do you realize how many shareholders in Canada, you know, every little town across the nation, people have shares in this? It's an awful feeling of a tragic moment.

After all these years, no one has been brought to justice. No one has gone to jail. And so it's been nagging at me ever since. What really went down out there in the humid Indonesian jungle? Was there ever any gold? You know, you start getting this, it sounds silly, but you get kind of a creepy feeling. Something just isn't right. I actually thought our phones were tapped. Because, you know, again, we're talking billions of dollars here.

I can't tell anything to anybody. And how did their lead geologist die? He says, you're not going to believe this. I said, what? He says, the Guzman just fell out of a helicopter. I said, no, that didn't happen. He says, no, that's what we're being told. He fell out of a helicopter. Did he jump or was he pushed?

When Mike was about to leave for Canada, he was saying, Ma, why do I feel like I'm being followed? I've seen coups and evacuations, but I've never seen something as intriguing as this. Join me as I investigate how greed can obliterate the truth in the $6 billion gold scam from the BBC World Service and CBC. ♪

I'm Natalia Melman-Petruzzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme: Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore.

Extreme. Peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.