A mining company’s claim that it had discovered a huge deposit of gold, deep in the Indonesian jungle, led to a scramble to invest in the firm. But all that glittered was not gold, as a new podcast series reveals, and questions remain about the mysterious death of the company’s chief geologist.
Warning: This article contains spoilers. It also has references to suicide and graphic content that some readers may find upsetting
On the morning of 19 March 1997, Michael de Guzman, chief geologist at Canadian mining company Bre-X Minerals, boarded a helicopter flight to travel to a remote jungle site in Indonesia.
It was a journey he had made many times before, to a place where he had reported finding huge deposits of gold.
But this time, de Guzman never arrived.
Twenty minutes into the journey, a rear door on the left-hand side of the helicopter opened and de Guzman had gone, plummeting to his death into the dense foliage below.
The CEO of the mining company announced de Guzman had taken his own life, having been diagnosed with hepatitis B and exhausted from fighting recurring Malaria.
Ten years later, Canadian journalist Suzanne Wilton was sent by the Calgary Herald to investigate De Guzman’s death.
“I was sent halfway around the world… This story has haunted me ever since,” she says.
Now, she is back on the case for a new podcast series – digging deeper into what happened before the fateful helicopter trip.
De Guzman was born in the Philippines on Valentine’s Day, 1956. An apt birthday, as he was often in love. He had three, possibly four, wives all at the same time across different countries.
A man who enjoyed karaoke, beer, visiting strip clubs and wearing gold, de Guzman was an experienced geologist who believed he could make his fortune in Indonesia.
In the 1990s, the country was seen as a land of opportunity for gold prospectors with its rich natural mineral sources, says Wilton.