Farewell, Constitution Mining (CMIN.ob), it was fun while it lasted

Hey, remember that thing called Constitution Mining (CMIN.ob), the utter scam that tried to sell underwater river dredging alluvial gold mining in Peru? Well, it seems like their cunning plan has hit a small roadbump, as Peru has just banned the very same dredging ships from dredging riverbeds due to the large-scale environmental damage caused by this process.

The ban so far only applies to the Madre de Dios river and not the Marañon river where CMIN fakes its projected operation, but that's only cos there aren't any operating dredgers on the Marañon. However, the chances of Peru allowing one Amazonian river to be screwed forever by scumbags while at the same time banning scumbags on another river are as high as the hole in your posterior has of healing up in the next week or so.

And thus we wave goodbye to Constitution Mining. You guys were great for a laugh and kept us entertained for nigh on a year, but all good things come to an end. Adios amigos, hasta nunca cabrones de mierda.

So how's that Constitution Mining scam coming along in 2010, Otto?

Weeeeell, it could have seen a better start to the year, I'd readily opine.

There's been a ton of comment from this humble scribe about the gold sands joke dressed up as opportunity known to the world as Constitution Mining (CMIN.ob) on these pages already, so let's just leave it to a finer and more succinct analyst to sum up today's chart on CMIN:
Thanks owly.

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.

Constitution Mining (CMIN.ob) third quarter results

This post is for anyone stupid enough to invest in OTC exploration stage mining companies without ever reading the regulatory filings. Our subject is the outright scam known as Constitution mining (CMIN.ob) and the event is the 10-Q financial report for 3q09 filed by the company last night.

• First, the cash position at the company is $1.15m but working capital was negative at $-0.387m, due to its debt position.

• Second, according to the company here's what it needs to run its exploration campaign in Peru in the next 12 months:

Activity	U$000s
MINERAL PROPERTY COSTS:
Surface Rights Access	150
EXPLORATION
Mapping	230
Geophysics – Seismic	400
DRILLING
Reconnaissance	1500
Resource Definition	2000
GEOTECHNICAL
Pits & Shafts	200
TECHNICAL SERVICES
Consultants	580
Personnel	430
CAMP AND FIELD EXPENSES
Camp	630
Field	250
TRANSPORT AND LOGISTICS
Air Transport	480
Water Transport	120
Ground Transport	150
EQUIPMENT & PERMITTING	210
COMMUNITY OUTREACH	300
ADMINISTRATION	150
TOTAL	7,78

Yes, that says U$7.78m

• Next, what the company plans to squander in G&A over the next 12 months:

Two Point Four Million Dollars

• Next, what the company needs to pay the title holders of the gold sands property, the equally scammy Temasek of Panama, on March 31st to get the third 25% of the property:

Three Million Dollars

Add 'em all up, and this is a company that has no money but needs $13.18m to go about its business. And as the following excerpt from the 10-Q makes very clear, the company is going to dilute your ass to try and get the cash. If you haven't sold yet, get the hell out of this scam.

At September 30, 2009, we had cash and cash equivalents of $1,153,669 (December 31, 2008 - $66,580) and a working capital deficit of $386,590 (December 31, 2008 - $162,440).

During the twelve month period following the date of this report, we anticipate that we will not generate any revenue. Our proposed plan of exploration anticipates that we will incur exploration related expenditures of $7,780,000 over the next twelve months. We anticipate spending approximately $200,000 in ongoing general and administrative expenses per month for the next twelve months, for a total anticipated general and administrative expenditures of $2,400,000 over the next twelve months. The general and administrative expenses for the year will consist primarily of professional fees for the audit and legal work relating to our regulatory filings throughout the year, investor relations related expenditures, as well as transfer agent fees and general office expenses. Our current cash on hand is insufficient to be able to make our planned exploration expenditures and to pay for our general administrative expenses over the next twelve months. Accordingly, we must obtain additional financing in order to continue our plan of operations during and beyond the next twelve months. We believe that debt financing will not be an alternative for funding additional phases of exploration as we do not have limited tangible assets to secure any debt financing. We anticipate that additional funding will be in the form of equity financing from the sale of our common stock. We are currently seeking additional funding in the form of equity financing from the sale of our common stock, but cannot provide investors with any assurance that we will be able to raise sufficient funding from the sale of our common stock to fund our complete exploration program. In the absence of such financing, we will not be able to pursue our exploration program and maintain our mineral property interests in good standing. If we do not fulfill the terms of any of these option agreements according to our business plan, then our ability to commence or continue operations could be materially limited. We also may be forced to abandon our mineral property interests and cease operations.

Temasek Investments Inc of Panama, Constitution Mining (CMIN.ob), Amazon Gold Sands (AZNG.ob) and Riverrun Resources (RRRO.pk): Connection time

Well, amazingly enough I had another batch of mailers writing in from Vancouver (of all places??? hoodathunkit???) going "hahahaha, Constitution Mining is up" and saying silly things like "buy the dips" as it rose yesterday. Buy the total collapse more like, but hey...who be I to tell the scam runners and bucketshops their jobs.

I honest don't give a damn about the scumballs that hang around plays like this, but I'd like to save maybe one or two people from actually believing their hyped up bullshit, so here's a bit of background about CMIN.ob and a couple of other companies that have concessions of the river Marañon in exactly the same place as CMIN.ob. This time i haven't linked up to the relevent SEC filings, but it's all there in the open air, so go look for yourself. And by the way, if you don't know how to search on the SEC website, you have no reason even to be looking at OB companies as possible investments. Learn about these things and save yourself some hard lesson later.

Enough preamble, let's play "spot the coincidence" but one more thing before we go on. A typical scamster ploy is to register a company name that's very similar to an established and reputable name. In this case, as far as I can make out "Temasek Investments Inc" of Panama has no connection to the very large and reputable "Temasek Holdings" investment fund company that is based in Asia.

Constitution Mining (CMIN.ob) is a gold exploration company that owns an option to buy in to a stretch of the river Marañon in northern Peru. It wants to dredge the sands under the river to recover the small quantities of gold that are found there. It optioned the property from Temasek Investments Inc in late 2008, a Panama based company that has a personal assistant in a law firm (Gray & Co, prop. Beth Anne Gray) as its president, a certain Marisela Simmons (Panamanian national, ID card number 8-794-2332 and whose qualifications run as far as a degree in tourism administration).

The option deal is to pay for the first 25% of the so-called gold sands property, then make payments for the second, the third and then the fourth 25% of the property in stages. CMIN.ob has revised the terms of the deal and made the second payment, but needs to find another $3m by March 31 (and 2m shares...that's easier) to make it to stage three. It now has very little cash left for any sort of exploration work, one quarter's worth of normal burn rate cash at bank, no assets, but somehow runs a market cap of $78m or so at present. Here's the chart for CMIN.ob:

Riverrun Resources (RRRO.pk) is a gold exploration company that owns an option to buy in to a stretch of the river Marañon in northern Peru. It wants to dredge the sands under the river to recover the small quantities of gold that are found there. It optioned the property from Temasek Investments Inc in late 2008, a Panama based company that has a personal assistant in a law firm (Gray & Co, prop. Beth Anne Gray) as its president, a certain Marisela Simmons (Panamanian national, ID card number 8-794-2332 and whose qualifications run as far as a degree in tourism administration).

The option deal is to pay for the first 25% of the so-called gold sands property, then make payments for the second, the third and then the fourth 25% of the property in stages. The chairman of RRRO.pk is Pat Gorman, who also sits on the board of CMIN.ob. It hasn't made the payments on time as yet. Here's the chart for RRRO.pk:

Amazon Gold Sands (AZNG.ob) is a gold exploration company that owns an option to buy in to a stretch of the river Marañon in northern Peru. It wants to dredge the sands under the river to recover the small quantities of gold that are found there. It optioned the property from Temasek Investments Inc in late 2008, a Panama based company that has a personal assistant in a law firm (Gray & Co, prop. Beth Anne Gray) as its president, a certain Marisela Simmons (Panamanian national, ID card number 8-794-2332 and whose qualifications run as far as a degree in tourism administration).

The option deal is to pay for the first 25% of the so-called gold sands property, then make payments for the second, the third and then the fourth 25% of the property in stages. AZNG.ob shares several board members with CMIN.ob., including its CEO, Hector Ponte, who sits on the CMIN advisory board. and the CFO of CMIN who also does the books at AZNG. This company hasn't made the options payments on time as yet, either. Here's the chart for AZNG.ob:

AZNG.ob actually traded above $20 a year or so before that chart starts...I'm trying to be nice here.

Bottom line: Whatever makes you think this CMIN.ob is a scam, Otto?

Constitution Mining (CMIN.ob) and Otto's handy mining investment rule of the day

Rule of the day is:

When an overpriced, overpumped, start-up alluvial sands gold mining scam in Latin America with directors from equally scammy junior mining companies in charge of operations and without enough money to make payments on the options for its already dubious asset sees its share price drop like a stone for no particular reason on big early morning volumes, there is reason to believe that the company is not in a good position going forward and should be avoided as a potential investment.

Did you get all that? I hope you were paying attention, cos there's a quiz at the end of the week.

Constitution Mining (CMIN.ob): This is, of course, bullish

I mean, when the President and CEO suddenly resigns for no apparent reason it can only be good for the company, right?

When it comes to CMIN.ob you'll remember me....cos I'm the one who warned you.

Link here, text below:

On September 25, 2009, Willem Fuchter resigned as our Chief Executive Officer, Principal Executive Officer, President and as a member of our board of directors. There was no known disagreement with Dr. Fuchter on any matter relating to the Company’s operations, policies or practices. On September 29, 2009, the board of directors appointed Gary Artmont (Age: 59) to act as President, Chief Executive Officer and Principal Executive Officer and hold these positions until removed by the board of directors.

Mr. Artmont has served on our Board of Directors since September 7, 2007. Previously, he served as our President, Chief Executive Officer and Principal Executive Officer from September 7, 2007 to January 10, 2008. Prior to that, he served as our Vice President, Exploration, from March 13, 2007 until September 7, 2007. In the late 1990s, as Indonesian-based chief geologist for Freeport-McMoRan, Mr. Artmont was responsible for the management and coordination of a large helicopter-supported regional reconnaissance program and detailed property evaluation program from 1989-1995. During the late 1990’s through until 2007, Mr. Artmont evaluated acquisition opportunities in Eastern Europe, South America, Southeast Asia China and Mongolia. His work focused on a wide range of commodities including gold, copper, iron, coal and nickel. During his career, Mr. Artmont has conducted over 150 site visits to producing mines located throughout the world. Mr. Artmont was a director of Pac Rim (PRL) from 2000 to 2006 and Prosperity Resources (PSP-ASX) from 2006-2008. Mr. Artmont is not a director or officer of any other reporting company at the present time

There are no family relationships between Mr. Artmont and any other of our directors or executive officers.

Mr. Artmont has not had any material direct or indirect interest in any of our transactions since the beginning of the Company’s last fiscal year or in any currently proposed transaction. At this time, we do not have any employment agreement with Mr. Artmont.

Constitution Mining (CMIN.ob); You were told

I know you were told cos it was me what did the telling just two days ago with the stock up there at the sillytop. Market cap of $110m, no assets and a stretch of water in Peru with tiny amounts of gold in the sands underneath. No cash, no enviro permit to dredge, an 18 month drill program...gotta love you investor-type people.

BUT FEAR YE NOT! There's still plenty of time to clean up on this thing, cos if you still fancy this as a short you're not too late. Please insert SFX of that specialcracking splintering sound a tree makes just before lumberjack yells 'timber' cos this dog is going back to whence it came.

UPDATE: Listen, people...listen carefully. I'm now getting mails and comments from people called "anonymous" who are just spewing out company promo spiel in their own words and calling me stupid and stuff and nonsense. If you're one of those people then believe it or not I'm actually trying to help you here. If you are trying to justify your investment mistake to me then you're wasting your time, but the worst thing about it is that you're trying to justify it to yourself. Believe me here, you're wrong about this company. I'm looking at you straight in the eye and I'm telling you with my best serious face that you are wrong. It's worth a tenth of its present market cap at best. You need to stop wading in to TheNextBigThing™ investment in junior mining on the word of some bullshit promoter on a chatroom board and a slick company-made PR campaign and read the SEC filings on companies instead. I was talking about a different stock to a e-mail pal a couple of days ago and I remarked that I still find it astonishing that people will buy into companies, especially junior mining companies, without reading the regulatory filings first. So please, do yourself a favour and 1) don't waste your time writing to me with your arrogant and misinformed nonsense about this stock (or any other scam mining stock for that matter) and 2) learn to be a better investor...not for me, cos I don't care. Swallow some of that foolish pride and start being serious about junior miners, cos there will always be a bunch of scamster sharks waiting for you and your money. Always have been and always will be.

Constitution Mining Corp (CMIN.ob)

So let's see: We've already been peppered by PRs from this start-up Peru alluvial sands exporation company called Constitution Mining (CMIN.ob) a company with a nice RonPaulesque ring to it, no? And now the very first drill result is back (with what?... 0.6g/t Au?..nah correction, it's about 0.3g/t) we're treated to a press release full of gushing and oooh wow and everything about one hole.

With 500 holes in planned to be drilled in the next 18 months, why do I get the feeling that these guys are going to become close to insufferable in the near future? Take one down and pass it around, there's 98 bottles of beer on the waaaaaaaall.

Anyway, this is the RegF filing and it's all you need to know about CMIN.ob for the moment.

The Company has commenced its planned exploration program, but must secure additional financing in the near future in order to be able to sustain any drilling activity or it will be forced to cease its exploration and development program

Well, the other thing you need to know is the correct moment to clean up on the short sale, but that's for another day. Meanwhile, if you are long CMIN.ob and care enough to take issue with my stance on this obvious promopumpdog, please write to my normal address as you will receive by return of mail details of the bridge I have for sale.

Pisco sours served. The end.

UPDATE: Ohmygawd, I've just noticed that CMIN.ob has a market cap of U$110m! Working cap deficit of $700k plus, less than $200k at bank and plans to spend $10m in the next twelve months with U$3m to find before the end of September 2009.... Oh lordy! P.T Barnum lives! So forget about trying to time it perfectly and short this sucker now. Six months from here you win, period.