Bre-X Minerals Ltd.

Bre-X Minerals Ltd.

A former Canadian mining company that has been accused of perpetrating the largest stock fraud in the history of mining and one of the largest in the history of Canada. In 1993, Bre-X bought a piece of land near the Busang River in Indonesia that was initially estimated to contain 2 million ounces of gold. Estimates consistently rose throughout the early and mid-1990s, culminating in a stated 200 million ounces by 1997. In the process, Bre-X went from being a penny stock to one of the most valuable stocks in Canada. When an independent company found little or no gold in the area, Bre-X collapsed and became the subject of investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It finally went bankrupt in 2002.