Thursday, January 21, 2010

Affinity (79F.f) and Constitution (CMIN.ob): Catching up on the Peruvian alluvial gold scams

First up is the Peruvian alluvial gold stupidity known as Affinity Gold (AFYG.ob) (79F.f) and ever since this post that noted the stock was trading at 24X asset value, things just haven't been the same for the scamsters.
So far it's 57.7% down and there's still an awful lot of dropping left to do, folks. Cue owl:

Now let's drop in on Constitution Mining (CMIN.ob)
, the other joke gold miner currently trying to pretend it's worth multiples more than its asset value by pumping an alluvial gold project that has all the same hallmarks as Affinity. The chart has also been looking weak....
.....but the real fun here are the latest regulatory filings. Here we see how the main insider is milking the company for all its worth by contracting out the social relations side of the scam to his own company for the cool sum of U$10,000 per month (and a whole bunch of expenses on top of that fee). Here below is part of the filing and the company referred to is 'The Stocker Group', run by a certain Michael Stocker. Amazingly, this deal was struck just before the latest 'management realignment' that made the new President and CEO for CMIN.ob.....yeah you guessed it already....Michael Stocker! :

The “Company” shall receive a fee based on work load for its services rendered during 1 (one) year (Oct. 2009 to Oct. 2010). The following fees will apply and be invoiced monthly.
(a) Hourly time charge: For meetings, telephone conferences/calls, etc. of less than half a day fee is USD 200/hour.
(b) Daily time charge international consultants: For periods equal in duration to, or exceeding, half a day fee is USD 1300/day. Between 0.5 and 1.0 day the charge is pro-rata. Local consultants in Peru will be charged at a day/fee of USD 600/day. The compensation rate has a cap of $1300 payable in any business day.
(c) Travel time is charged at the same daily rate.
(d) Consulting services provided by Dr. MICHAEL JOHANN STOCKER pursuant to this agreement will be limited to USD 10,000/month.
(e) Reasonable, proven expenses (travel, accommodation, meals, major ‘phone charges, etc.) are charged at cost with no mark up. Receipts are provided for all charges.
(f) Flights, and combinations of flights, of 3 hours or more in duration are in business class.
(g) The company may terminate the contract with 3 month’s written notice.

This milking isn't something new, though. As the filings show, in 2009 Stocker managed to cream off $90,000 directly for himself and another a cool $257,130 went to his other company, 'Stocker International Inc', all for the line items known as 'consulting services' (my, those overheads, eh?). All this from a company with a 7X ratio of market cap to NAV and on a current 18 month exploration program that according to the same filings needs even more money thrown at it else be curtailed.

Yes indeed, PT Barnum is alive and well and living in Santiago, Chile.