Southerwestern in scandal over Chinese gold prospect

Southwestern Resources Corp, the Canadian junior gold miner, has reported that drill samples from its Boka gold prospect in China appear to have been tampered with and that the project’s general manager has been dismissed.

The general manager apparently refused to answer questions about the apparent breach and the Vancouver-based company has now withdrawn all previously announced results for the project, which is located in China’s Yunnan province.

Some of Canada’s larger institutional investors hold shares in Southwestern, which is now without a chief executive (the latter was also founder of the company and resigned in early July).

According to the company’s chairman, David Black, some assay values at Boka did not correspond with the assay certificate received from the assayer’s office.

In addition there have been accusations that some of the drill samples from the project had been compromised.

Southwestern has gained a high profile among the junior gold companies trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange but it seems likely that investors have been given erroneous assay results.

However, experts at the University of British Columbia’s institute of mining and engineering have pointed out that the core samples may not have been tampered with, as problems could have arisen if the drilling results were handled incorrectly, or there have been errors in paperwork.