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The Six Billion Dollar Gold Scam · BBC & CBC

1. The fall

May 19, 2024·40 min·3 clips
Michael de Guzman plunges 800 feet from a helicopter over the Borneo rainforest, presumed dead, after a night of karaoke.
A warning comes first. The episode begins with difficult subject matter, then settles on Michael de Guzman getting ready for a night out in a mining town in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. He wears gold openly, which lands strangely beside the warning's references to death and suicide. The scene stays close: a hotel mirror, a black silk shirt, a 24-karat chain, karaoke, drinks, and Frank Sinatra. Then it pulls back. De Guzman and Felderhoff come across as exploration men running on belief, not just readings from the ground. The episode is less starry-eyed than that sounds. One voice says an ore body is made partly by geology, but also by money, investors, persuasion, and someone willing to sell conviction hard enough. That is the hinge. Mining here is both physical search and human sales job, a place where confidence can start filling the space before the evidence is solid. Luck does not show up. After Black Monday, foreign investors retreat, markets shake, and even gold does not rise when stocks fall. The two men keep pushing anyway. By 1993, they have expertise, ambition, and drive, but the narration makes it clear that is still not enough. They need a third man. When their fortunes are low, Felderhoff gets a call from a small-time Canadian mining executive. The episode leaves the pressure there. A man dressing for karaoke turns into a colder question about belief, salesmanship, and the thin line between finding value and creating it.

As heard by us

A mining boom story where geology, money, and belief all strain together.

The episode follows Michael de Guzman in East Kalimantan as he gets ready for a night out, then shifts to the next morning and the helicopter pad.

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Why you'd press play

When a gold rush starts to look like a trap.

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