Soc a collection of lowlifes who ......have been mining the venture exchange for years. Here is from a stockwatch reporter.
Andrew Lee Smith and Dr. Jingbin Wang's Canaco Resources Inc. (CAN) resumed trading after a one-day halt, gaining 12 cents to $3.26 on 3.13 million shares. Canaco's property dispute with Ken Churchill's Sonora Gold & Silver Corp. (SOC:
.70) took a turn for the worse today when Sonora denied receiving any official notice of arbitration or indeed that there was any dispute at all. Sonora said today it asked Canaco on July 30, to stop exploring on the land it acquired (according to a TSX-V notice) on July 24. Sonora provided little information about how it managed to acquire a 17-acre property in the middle of Canaco's discovery zone at the Handeni property in Tanzania, but had plenty to say, without details, about the validity of its rights. Sonora said its property rights can even be reviewed by the public, as long as one flies to Tanzania and pays a fee to the Tanzanian mineral registry to see them.
Sonora was Mont Blanc Resources Inc. until 2008 when it was suspended by the British Columbia Securities Commission for failing to file its financials, eventually changing its name to Sonora. These days the company's management is a hodge podge of Vancouver types. Sonora's chairman, president and chief executive officer is Mr. Churchill, whose experience mainly involves managing or owning several different supermarkets "in various locations" -- locations he keeps close to his chest. When asked by a reporter for more information about his supermarket experience, he replied, "I've disclosed as much about those businesses as I want to." Mr. Churchill took over control of Sonora in 2008 from Jens Biertumpel, a former Coquitlam resident who helped promote the stock to $1 in 2006 from its 10-cent origins a year earlier. It fell back to around a dime until Mr. Churchill appeared. Mr. Churchill brought on Mr. Biertumpel's father, Jurgen, as corporate secretary last year. Jurgen is a German immigrant accountant who most recently worked as a realtor in the residential hotspots of Frederiction, N.B., and Coquitlam.
Sonora's better known players include Vancouver's Robert Dinning, a busy accountant presently on the board of four junior explorers, including acting as Sonora's chief financial officer; and Paul Matysek, the president of Potash One Inc. (KCL: $3.37), who joined the board last month. The company's directors have placed themselves in a good position for a settlement, should there be one. This month they received approval from the TSX-V for stock options on 900,000 shares exercisable at 50 cents, after having the exchange first turn down 25 cents, and then turn down 33 cents. In the past few months the company also granted options to buy 1.7 million shares at 10 cents and 60 cents to Mr. Biertumpel and others. Finally, three directors each loaned the company $50,000 this month, for which they will each receive about 20,000 bonus shares and interest at 12 per cent a year.
Frank Basa's Gold Bullion Development Corp. (GBB) lost two cents to 56 cents on 772,000 shares. The company is raising $8-million for more exploration at its past-producing Granada project in Quebec. Several rounds of Granada drilling helped the stock up from 10 cents in March, leaving Mr. Basa's 4.2 million shares up $1.93-million. Gold Bullion completed a 20,000-metre drill program last month, and then decided to extend drilling at its LONG (lots of new gold) Bars zone. The company says it has seen lots of visible gold at LONG Bars, and now investors are waiting to see the