The Six Billion Dollar Gold Scam
4.4/5
Critic Rating
It was the biggest gold discovery in history…until it wasn’t. In 1995, Canadian mining company Bre-X announced to the world it had found a significant amount of gold deep in the jungles of Indonesia. Stock prices soared as investors worldwide fought to stake their claim. But when Bre-X’s chief geologist mysteriously fell from a helicopter over the jungle, the story of the billion dollar discovery began to unravel. Nearly three decades later, no one has ever been held accountable. Now, host Suzanne Wilton takes listeners from the jungles of Indonesia to small town Alberta, Canada, to investigate what really...
Critic Reviews
Score: 5
Edward Wickham • Church Times • Jul 12, 2024
"...questions are asked, but only partially answered...this series replicates that balance of level-headed reportage and narrative flair. This really is a cracking good story...It’s a complex one as well..."
Score: 3
James Marriot • The Times UK • Jul 4, 2024
"...comes buried in heaps of indigestible detail about mining and corporate malfeasance. Furrow your brow, pay attention and there’s lots of rewarding listening here. The Six Billion Dollar Gold Scam is hardly the first show to require listeners to wade through minute after minute of complicated information. I sometimes wonder if the problem isn’t so much podcasts as the rest of the media."
Score: 4
Fiona Sturges • Financial Times • Jun 30, 2024
"Wilton does a decent job of making old material feel fresh, though nine episodes feels like too many. I can’t be the only listener to have fitfully lost track of the protracted negotiations and summits and the ever-expanding cast of men in suits...it is worth pressing on for the final three episodes that yield new information and a suitably mind-blowing theory about de Guzman’s final hours. If you thought the scam story was good, the murder mystery is pure gold. …"
Score: 5
Jude Rogers • The Guardian • May 25, 2024
"...some good old-fashioned fraud...I was sceptical that The Six Billion Dollar Gold Scam would make compelling, multi-episode listening, but quickly became hooked by this tale...this is a rich, vivid story."
Score: 5
Stephen O. • Podcast Delivery • May 20, 2024
"The Six Billion Dollar Gold Scam unravels the colossal deception surrounding the gold deposit discovery in the Indonesian jungle. Narrated by Suzanne Wilton, a journalist who has doggedly followed the story since its unfolding over two decades ago, the podcast promisingly peels back layers of intrigue and human drama."
