On rats, captains and sinking ships

When a ship sinks we are told that the Captain of the vessel will be the last to leave, making sure that all hands are off and safe before they step off themselves. The good captain is perfectly willing to go down with the ship and suffer a watery grave, it's all to do with honour, morals and obligation. But we're also told that rats will get the hell off the boat as fast as they can because....well, because they're rats, aren't they?

So it was interesting to note what happened over at Copper Mesa (CUX.to) recently. On January 19th, the company announced it was being de-listed from the TSX after review (mostly due to the über-nasty way the company conducted itself in Ecuador when known as Ascendent..we've talked about this before).

Copper Mesa Mining Corporation (CUX)						As of February 7th, 2010
Filing Date	Transaction Date	Insider Name	Ownership Type	Securities	Nature of transaction	# or value acquired or disposed of	Unit Price
Feb 06/10	Jan 29/10	Gill, Rana	Direct Ownership	Common Shares	10 - Disposition in the public market	-105,000	$0.030
Feb 04/10	Jan 18/10	Gill, Rana	Direct Ownership	Common Shares	10 - Disposition in the public market	-222,840	$0.075

Yes indeed, on January 18th, a day before the de-listing announcement was made public on the 19th, company CFO Rana Gill dumped 222,840 shares at three times the current share price. The day afterwards, non-insider shareholders got to know what Gill already knew; that CUX was a sinking ship. The shares caved in but Rana Gill was already sold out by then.

Rana Gill: Captain of industry or rat? YOU BE THE JUDGE!

In the end, this post isn't really about an already dead company such as CUX and the scumballs that populate it. It's more about knowing who the hell you're investing with. If you're the type of person who watches a glossy presentation from a junior miner, thinks "Hey....gotta have some of these!" and hits the iPhone to buy some there and then, you're mad. The TSX and TSXV is laden with people who have the same moral and ethical standards as Rana Gill and if you can't be bothered to find out more about the prospective company before buying shares you'd be much better off giving your cash away to charity. At least that way it might do something positive to the world instead of feeding crooks in suits.

Holy Crap! The Canadian regulators actually do something worthwhile for a change

Did you catch this on Tuesday? I wasn't around, but a kind e-mail pal gave me the headsup this morning. The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) has actually done something about cleaning up the cruddy, shady image of scamster junior miners it quotes on its boards as one of the very worst of the lot, Copper Mesa (CUX.to) has just been de-listed after review. Here's the PR from the 19th:

TORONTO, Jan. 19 /CNW/ - DELISTING REVIEW - Copper Mesa Mining Corporation (the "Company") - Further to TSX Bulletin No. 2009-1680 dated December 14, 2009, TSX has determined to delist the common shares (Symbol: CUX) and the transferable share purchase warrants (Symbol: CUX.WT) of the Company at the close of market on February 19, 2010 for failure to meet the continued listing requirements of TSX.

As you may (or not) know, Copper Mesa was once upon a time known as Ascendant Copper and used terrorist tactics (not joking, check out the youtubes parts 1 to 5), attempted kidnappings of protestors etc etc to try and force forwards its project in the Intag region of Ecuador. After getting kicked out of Ecuador by Studmuffin, Ascendant changed its name to Copper Mesa and tried to hoodwink the world again (and even got pinetree to buy in recently), but now here we are with a de-listed company, thanks to the TSX.

Canadian regulators have always been notoriously toothless in the face of the scamster companies they host, so in my little Utopian dreams I'd like to imagine this week as a turning point and the TSX/OSC and all their pals saying 'no more mister nice guy' to the dozens and dozens of scamster companies out there. Call me naïve at your own leisure at a later date, if required.

Canada-Ecuador: When Stock Exchanges Fuel Human Rights Violations

A very interesting article came up on upsidedown world just before Christmas concerning the methods of the junior mining company in South America (Ecuador, to be exact). Written by the author of Ascendant Copper's dsownfall, Carlos Zorrillo, it examines the role of the stock exchange in cases of human rights abuses, using what happened at Intag as its base point. Well worth reading, even if you don't necessarily agree.

Canada-Ecuador: When Stock Exchanges Fuel Human Rights Violations

Recently, Toronto-based Pinetree Capital bought a few million shares of Copper Mesa Mining Corporation, making it the largest share owner of a failing company currently embroiled in a lawsuit. The takeover raised the price of its penny stock upwards to between three and five cents.

Copper Mesa, however, got a lot more than what it bargained for.

Copper Mesa, until last year, was the owner of a couple of mining concessions in the Intag region of Ecuador. But the company ran into a strong, organized opposition from communities, local government and, eventually even the national government, which eventually stripped Copper Mesa of its concessions in the country. The company then had to shed itself of its mining projects in the US to pay off debts, leaving it as empty handed as when it was first aborted.

Needless to say, Copper Mesa’s directors and a select number of employees and shareholders have never been the worse for the disaster they created, which happens to be an established norm in the world of Canadian stock exchange business. The Bre-X case is one which comes to mind. Bre-X was the Canadian company that fleeced thousands of investors of billions of dollars all based on a non-existent gold mine in Indonesia.

Copper Mesa, based in Vancouver, is infamous for other reasons, in addition to wasting millions of dollars on a mining project that has gone nowhere. Its notoriety mostly comes from using the equivalent of paramilitaries in the Junín community to forcefully trying to gain access to its concessions (which they never were able to access even to explore). Interestingly enough, the shootout took place almost exactly three years ago to the day that Pinetree took over the shipwreck called Copper Mesa. The assault against the community of Junin failed completely, but the graphic images and video of ex-military thugs dressed as security personnel shooting at defenseless campesinos went round the world, and is featured on several full-length documentaries about Intag’s successful resistance to mining.

In the rich and varied annals of corporate abuse and stupidity, and in record time, this has become a classic.

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