Junior Mining, Perfect Career for Someone with No Moral Sense

"There is no shortage...of lucrative opportunities that exist for a fast-talking psychopath with a head for numbers and the social skills to move easily in financial circles.... If I were unable to study psychopaths in prison, my next choice would very likely be a place like the Vancouver Stock Exchange[an exchange built upon junior mining stocks]."

Dr. Robert D. Hare, in Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us

a culture that "revolves around the assumption that success or failure is serendipitous rather than the product of hard work, acumen or other conventional means building a business."

a "core group" of stock promoters "well known for dubious and illegal activities."

trading philosophy is `sell and buy, don't ask why.'

companies that are bad credit risks, that turn to loan sharks - with the usual unhappy consequences - companies that through misfortune, mismanagement or outright stupidity, end up in trouble with bad people.

moose pasture

a promoter

story that sure sounds like a good one

a catchy phrase "Ring of Fire"

man on the ground -a fifty-six- year-old geologist

a pimp to talk to brokers about the sort of "promising indicators" so ubiquitous they might show up in your kitty-litter box.

Stock promotion is good work, along with being a politician or a mercenary, for someone with no moral sense.

"Stock promotion is an inherently duplicitous business. You have to buy low and sell high. You have to tell people when to buy and never tell those same people when to sell. It seems to me that it certainly helps to have an amoral bent to be a promoter."
David Baines

Classic cases
The VSE Rap Sheet

Crimes, misdemeanours and misfortunes of a controversial exchange

February, 1997 John Hampton Hickman III found dead in his car. Death ruled a suicide

January, 1997 David Ward murdered in his car

August, 1996 Terrance Watts murdered, stuffed into trunk of his car

October, 1995 Assa Manhas jumps or is pushed from the 20th floor of the Pan Pacific hotel in San Francisco. Death ruled a suicide

August, 1994 Nick and Lisa Masee disappear

October, 1992 The police inform Vancouver Sun business reporter David Baines that a contract is out on his life. At first shocked, Baines later says he was angry. "I'm annoyed that the VSE and the Securities Commission have allowed this kind of milieu to develop on the exchange, to allow this kind of subculture to prosper." Baines continues to receive threats as late as February, 1997.

May, 1990 Ray Ginnetti murdered, body stuffed into closet at home

June, 1989 Veteran Howe Street investigator Adrian du Plessis receives a string of threats promising death if he doesn't desist from his criticisms of VSE deals and dealers

July, 1988 Robert White, president of Duck-Book Communications, publishers of a rightwing magazine dedicated to free enterprise, is murdered in Central America

February, 1988 Sonny O'Sullivan assaulted in downtown Vancouver. This is later proved to be part of a plot to force O'Sullivan to pay $82,500, which his assailants claim he owed them in commission for sale of Starfire Resources Ltd.

March, 1987 VSE promoter and convicted stock market fraud Guy LaMarche shot dead in Toronto's Royal York hotel by Andre Bissonnette, who claims to be LaMarche's childhood friend

March, 1985 Stock promoter Bo Strange Mortil attacked in his West Van home by masked thugs, who throw him down a flight of stairs. The assailants are never caught

October, 1984 Arthur John Verne Orrice Higgs, president of Altera Resources, a company claiming options on gold and silver mines in British Columbia, Nevada and California, is found dead in a culvert near Hope, B.C. Higgs had been beaten and stabbed repeatedly. Altera went public on the VSE in January, 1983, offering shares at $1 each. When the company was delisted in the spring of 1984, shares, if they sold at all, were going for 14 cents. Higgs was described as "a nice man, kind-hearted, he'd give you the shirt off his back."