145 ounce nugget!

[Sheldon J]

from Massive 145-Ounce (132-troy ounce) Gold Nugget found with GPZ 7000 | Minelab News

Awesome!!!

Massive 145-Ounce (132-troy ounce) Gold Nugget found with GPZ 7000

Victoria, Australia

The ‘Friday’s Joy’ gold nugget is expected to bring more than $250,000 AUD. It was discovered in a worked-over area at the far southern edge of Central Victoria’s Golden Triangle on a recent Friday morning by a seasoned prospector wishing to remain anonymous. After discovering a 9-ounce tennis ball-shaped gold nugget more than two feet deep with his Minelab GPZ 7000 the previous day, he went back for more.

 

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[DeepseekerADS]

This is a pretty darned good advertisement for the Minelab GPZ 7000!

There's little gold here, so I don't need one.....

We can dream can't we?

 

[BagLady]

OMG!!!!!!!!!! I'd have a heart attack of the good kind!!

 

[Lucky Eddie]

Four Words.

Yellow Rose Of Texas!

Ohh - OK...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perth_Mint_Swindle

In a separate matter, in September 1982 the three brothers, their parents and another man Brian Pozzi were charged over a matter relating to a manufactured gold nugget known as the "Yellow Rose of Texas".[SUP][2][/SUP] Perth Businessman Alan Bond had purchased the nugget for $350,000 in November 1980. It was later found to be worth less than $150,000 and Raymond Mickelberg and Brian Pozzi pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to fraud at their June 1984 trial.

In effect this is SOMETIMES a way employed to try and "legitimize" ownership of stolen gold!.

We have a pretty good "Gold Stealing Squad" within our local Police force employed in the Goldfields principally to try to keep tabs on gold thefts among mining employees principally.

Unless you can account for how you came into possession of your Gold - it can be hard to sell it without drawing a lot of attention to oneself.


In the Mickelbergs case... they claimed to have found their nugget out n the Kalgoorlie / Coolgardie goldfields of West Oz when they stopped their car for a leak and "tested out their new whites metal detector" and stumbled upon it.

In truth it was manufactured ion their Mother Peggies suburban back yard.

Someone I know was there at the time of a Police raid that allegedly recovered a LOT of the stolen Perth Mint Gold.

Detective Sergeant Don Hancock contacted me in 1983 about finding buried bodies.
We went out to East Perth cemetry and did some tests---he said there are 10k bodies here and only 400 headstones---find me some bodies.

Obviously we found one within minutes and I said looking at the data this looks interesting---Don shouted hold on I'm coming over and stared towards me--suddenly the ground gave way and he shouted ***&&%^--we looked around and he was upto his knees in a grave--where the coffin had rotted.

He said OK you can find boxes, but there are paupers and muslims here (no coffins) can you find those---we started surveying and eventually found quite a few coffinless burials and a mass grave containing victims from the Perth workhouse who died in a flu epidemic after WW1.

The next stage was to go out to a secret location and we signed papers of none disclosure.

We located what appeared to be 2 bodies and we left.

Don phoned a few months later and asked if we could find gold--of course we can I said.

We are hired to go on a dawn raid and drove from Wanneroo (Edgewater) to Police HQ and met the team, Don and his oppo Leweski or something and two other cars full of PC's.

They shoot away in their 5 litre commodores and we follow in our 2 litre Land Rover Safari, which for some reason my ops manager (hence the we) had

1. Filled the 100 gallon fuel tank plus reserve fuel on roof rack
2. Filled the50 gallon water tank--as though we were going bush.

The police had a 0 to 60 time of seconds and we had a 0 to 60 time of what!!!!!!--probably next Wednesday,
Consequently at every set of lights from Adelaide Tce to North Cottesloe beach the cops waited for us to arrive (we could have met them further north if they had used their common sense)
Anyhow we arrived at a Mickleburg house and are told to wait while they serve the search warrant (it's now 7am) suddenly the house front door opens and a very attractive lady in a silk dressing gown runs out pursued by a rather robust PC woman who chases the lady up and down the street and finally grabs her robe which slides off effortlessly to reveal a very nice naked view.

This is a top secret mission don't forget, but as that hulllaballoo dies down vehicles start arriving, Channel 7, Channel 9 Channel 2, and many reporters----I thought what's going on here.?

We wait and then are told they can't use us in the house so would we survey the kiddies sand pit in the garden which they had seen through aerial surveys was new.

We surveyed the sand pit and found nothing---it was getting hot and TV cameras followed us everywhere.

Towards lunchtime Don came and asked if we could see through concrete in the undercroft garage--I said yes and we went to the garage.

I got a tape out and was starting to mark the wall for the survey grid---Don said we don't need that and pointing to a spot on the wall below the house said survey here.

I ran the antenna across the spot and said we have an anomaly here that looks very conductive---a voice shouted duck! and as a I ducked a sledge hammer smashed into the wall.
I got out of the way and they eventually broke through the wall---Don asked how far in from the wall is the target and I said approx 1m---so a PC climbed into the hole and started digging and then shouted got it!.

The cameras all zoomed in over my shoulder as the PC started passing gold ingots through the hole.

They started loading the boot of a Commodore and eventually it lifted the front end off the road (Publicity stunt)

We settled down for lunch in the garden and I was chatting to the stunningly georgeous I think Channel 7 News reader (I thought hello we have the main news anchors here from all channels instead of the normal field reporters)

I casually picked at a piece of what I thought was copper wire in the garden wall brickwork pointing and this ball grew steadily and was actually gold---the cameras were there again as the ball grew.

I was told that the brothers had melted gold bullion and coated a rock which they sold to Alan Bond as a paperweight.this subterfuge had been uncovered when a Geophysicist was visiting Bondie (as we called him--we did a few jobs for him) and said that nugget is phoney---the nugget had cost Bondie $400K.

Anyhow we wound up on site and were asked to go back to Police HQ for debrief---this turned into a marathon beer call in the Clubhouse which we left in poor condition at 9pm and had bluelight police motor cycle escort home as we were both very drunk and they didn't want us to get arrested for DDriving by a in their words honest copper.(It seemed to be a big happy clique centered around Don Hancock)

We had a few further jobs on Don's recommendations, but started getting sinister and threatening phone calls on a regular basis and then prowlers around the house while I was away.
Then I was suddenly sacked from my job offshore and every job I applied for was turned down--which forced us to sell up and leave the country.

I wanted to make a police series about these jobs,and many others but Aussie TV don't respond.

I would love to see copies of the Channel 7, 9 and 2 tapes of the Mickleburg raid.(Do you know anybody)

The brothers were painted as rogues to me by the police.

One was an experienced deep sea oil fields diver who apparently drowned while snorkeling for abelone.
Another was a commercial pilot who died in a crash at Jandekot airfield when taking off in a fully fueled plane (which turned out to be a con with needles fixed on full) with a team of geophysicists to do some magnetometer surveys---one of those killed (Graham Sands) was friend of mine---we had a fine time at a geophysics conference in Brisbane a few months before his death.

My nephew in Perth got married about 6 years ago to a female police officer and they came to visit on their world tour-----she told me Don Hancock was dead (murdered by a car bomb in his vehicle and that Lewan*****ski had shot himself---this scared me)

I contacted Ray M and he was quite nasty as if I framed him, but didn't want to anything that might interfere with his multi million dollar compo claim.

I am still not so sure that it was a total frame up, but I got scared by all the threats---even his mother phoned me and swore etc---who gave her my unlisted number

Cheers for now

John

I am NOT saying that the Vic nugget is manufactured... just being cautionary that it MIGHT possibly be!

Who knows why someone would need to do that, BUT I could speculate!

For example it's NOT that long back that 2 WA Prospectors vanished in mysterious circumstances & 1 (The husband) remains was found murdered and dumped down a mine shaft....the wife never found!. Did THEY perhaps find a BIG nugget and were they maybe killed/ murdered for it? Have the killer/killers waited patiently this long looking for the right time and place top legitimize their ownership of such a nugget by "finding it" in another state across State Police jurisdictional lines?

https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&...Pm4RM25nRQdyO-dHw&sig2=LYWq6YGakiHeM1ntoiXn5A

https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&...P3U5bPXrWHVkS75DQ&sig2=oSCHLVPVf3dX1naQ6aWU4A

https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&...cllDzEmMk9Cf3S1bw&sig2=zacOVdzhtlvfQ5hF7qSX2g

https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&...xOZX758gRypI2-7jw&sig2=sWmSAcahfWzaQUnxpRHueQ

https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&...AlLj9phWQvCIBHAhQ&sig2=hXEZSQoHrJgEJcWkDY6nxw

Etc there's a heap of articles about these two.

If I were someone looking to legitimize ownership of a HUGE nugget I would invest in a new Minelabs GPX7000 & "find" it in a Victorian Goldfield!

Most of the Kilo Plus nuggets found in Oz have been found in the Golden Triangle around Ballarat in Victoria, so that MIGHT e a place to legitimize your gold by finding it if you had to kill to get it.

Does kinda make you stop and ask questions & ponder the what if's - is all.

I am left wondering quietly to myself if the prospectors who all shared in this "lucky find" each have alibi's for their whereabouts at the time the 2 missing murdered prospectors here disappeared is all - at least If I were heading the homicide investigation its a line of inquiry i would pursue just in case - if ONLY to rule the possibility out!.

Just call me suspicious by nature.

 

[Sheldon J]

OMG!!!!!!!!!! I'd have a heart attack of the good kind!!

Heart attack.... I would have wet myself!!!

as to being made... the holes, pock marks look just a little too natural, most of the man made nuggets that I have seen look too good, aka clean, rounded, not enough imperfections to be true.
Now the theft theory while plausible WA to AU... check his passport quick ;-)

 

[Lucky Eddie]

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/32456062/massive-gold-nugget-find-sparks-wealth-of-intrigue/



This 6 kilo one from marble Bar in West Oz is larger!.

Again who knows whether we are seeing stolen gold being legitimized by being purportedly found"!

If i was in that situation of having to "explain" the origin of gold in order to sell it - THATS what I might be tempted to do!.

WHO might NEED to do something like this?

Umm, perhaps someone who say found and salvaged one of the 3 known still missing Dutch East Indiamen on the West Oz coast (Ridderschap van Holland (1694), Fortuin (1724) Aagtekerke (1725/6).

All historic shipwrecks are protected under the Historic Shipwrecks Act which makes it illegal to damage wreck sites or remove artefacts from them.
As a result if you WERE to find such a wreck and it had called in at Cape of Good Hope and swapped Dutch silver for African Gold and Ivory on its way to the Dutch East Indies... and say you wanted to be able to keep and sell that gold... then you'd need to melt it down and "legitimize" your ownership of it (by manufacturing and "finding" a nugget) for e.g.

Could this have ever happened in the past?

No Cookies | Perth Now

The extraordinary case even involved more than 58kg of bullion being dumped at the Seven Network's Perth studios in 1989, shortly after Peter's release, in an apparent attempt to implicate him.It was later shown to be South African gold that was not related to the case.

Whats NEVER been revealed until now is that back at the time PRIO to the mint Swindle setup... Micklebergs and the then Commissioner of Police & the THEN editor of the WA Newspaper, were ALL involved in the discovery and salvage of the Dutch East Indiaman Zuyptdorp found wrecked on what are now called the Zyptdorp cliffs north of Kalbarri!

Pilot Eldest bro Brian who was also an abalone diver, was involved in flying in old single wing Oster air plane to a rough bush landing strip constructed largely by hand by the consortium of treasure hunters, at the cliffs tops and dived the wreck, retrieving much silver bullion but concentrating MOSTLY on the African Gold - about which non of the other members of the consortium were ever informed.

This was African Gold that the Cape Town records indicate the Zyptdorp called in, and exchanged Dutch silver for African Gold and Ivory...

And the creating in the very early 1970's of the agreement in the Hauge with the Dutch, making all historic shipwrecks the property of the State & specifying a splitting arrangement between Australian and Holland?Netherlands - meant that these treasure hunters who legitimately FOUND the wreck before the legislation, BUT were caught up in the legislation by its retrospective nature, basically conspired to create a false Perth Mint Gold Theft - and to manufacture fake nuggets etc in order to be able to legitimize the gold so it could be sold.

The statement that the African Gold handed in to TV News reporter Allison fan was not related tot he Micklebergs case - could not be further from the truth... it was the KEY to solving the whole mystery - because it linked the Mickelbergs, WA Newspapers editor and Police (Det Hancock) to the Dutch Wreck, which they illegally plundered as a syndicate.

Even the Book "The Mickleberg Stitch" (about the Mint Swindle and subsequent hi-jinks/murders) doesn't discuss the Zuyptdorp wreck gold.

How do I know?

Because back at the time it happened, the shipwrecks legislation hadn't been envisioned, it wasn't illegal when they did it - it only became illegal retrospectively afterwards in the early 1970's when the historic shipwrecks legislation was enacted!.

So because it was legal at the time it was filmed on old 8mm movie film, I have a copy of the films, with the Police Editor and Mickelberg boys diving the wreck - dynamiting the cliffs looking for more coins washed up & the elder Mickelberg boy flying his Oster in to the rough bush airstrip - the construction of the air strip etc.

And that's the problem with big Gold, people will go to extraordinary efforts to cover up the truth about its origin - if it means they wish to be able to have the ability to keep it to sell!.

There's a LOT of unsolved murders.... involved wit the Shipwreck Gold in WA, the most notorious being Detective Inspector Don Hancock - blown up in his car with his bookie mate after a day out at the races!.

A Biker was later convicted of the crime...

However who made the bomb?

The fact one of the younger Mickleberg boys who was falsely jailed by Hancock - was a trained sapper in Vietnam for the Aus army, & an expert in demolitions with explosives is never mentioned!

Ahh what a tangled web we weave - when we set out to deceive.

Even after the shipwreck was plundered by the treasure hunting syndicate, once the Maritime Museum got to it after the historic shipwrecks legislation was enacted, their first dives recovered over 8000 silver dutch coins in just one months dives (the majority of which the maritime museum cannot now account for)!. How do i know? Its on the 8mm film that I have a digitized copy of!.

In essence everyone from officialdom associated with this whole shipwreck gold saga, from top to bottom seems to be bent/crooks & murderers.

And this is why I am such a skeptic of all these miraculous discovery's of large nuggets.... in Australia - because i am aware of roughly how much stolen gold still remains to be legitimized before it can be sold.

Gold makes strange bedfellows.. and otherwise sane men do crazy things!.

 

[Bumpstick]

Question for Lucky Eddie
Could you just use a Precious Metal Analyzer and tell if the nugget is natural or manufactured

https://www.thermofisher.com/order/catalog/product/XL2PRECIOUS?ICID=search-product

 

[Oddjob]

Very nice find for sure, I got my 7000's for my hobby and they paid them selves off soon after, but never anything like this at all.

Would be nice.

For all the conspiracy towards the nugget, prospector and Minelab. I am sure Minelab would have not gotten in on this at all if the nugget had not been tested already. Fact is they do not need to because anyone who owns one of these knows they find gold, with totals larger than this single find.

 

[Lucky Eddie]

Question for Lucky Eddie
Could you just use a Precious Metal Analyzer and tell if the nugget is natural or manufactured

https://www.thermofisher.com/order/catalog/product/XL2PRECIOUS?ICID=search-product

No Idea - I have never owned one!.

Its not that the gold might be counterfeit... its the source of the Gold... where it CAME from.

Is it Australian Gold (or indeed even Victorian / Nallarat / Golden Triangle Gold) OR is it West Australian Gold or possibly even African Gold is the question!.

That's the possible isssue/s at stake here & whether the device above can determine to that degree of analysis - I have no idea.

Refer back to the Mickelberg Perth Mint Swindle case and the quote from John of the UK, who was the GPR operator present at the raid on the Mickelbergs house.

Mickelbers were accused and convicted for a swindle of the Perth Mint where Bullion Bars (i.e. minted / refined bars, with assay details and serial numbers on them and 99.9% pure gold stamp etc etc), YET the persons present says, when Gold was recovered from under their Mother Peggys house in Cottesloe - they were Gold Ingots, and we KNOW there's evidence of them melting gold in the back yard ad making a fake nugget!

If you melted down gold from a shipwreck, and then manufactured a fake nugget mightn't that gold be melted into ingot form as part of the process?.

You'd think that someone, who witnessed a recovery would describe the minted gold bullion bars which were allegedly missing from the Perth Mint as Gold BARS & or Bullion becase of the uniformity and serial numbers and purity stamps Perth Mint markings etc etc.

Yet the eye witness describes scenes of melted gold in the garden brickwork mortar pointing & the 'bars' as ingots, something you might make in your back yard just as some might cast lead ingots or even lead fishing sinkers in a mold.

Also think about this.

The Mickelbers convictions were later quashed - because there was never any proof against them.

So - if an eye witness observed the recovery of serial numbered minted gold bars from the Perth Mint - and that's the crime that the Mickelbergs were originally charged & convicted of, HOW could their charges be later quashed IF there was serial numbered minted bars with fineness stamps an Perth Mint Stamps etc on them.. surely those minted bars, would be traced back to the original claimed Perth Mint swindle theft minted bars - complete with their serial numbers etc?

An this is all just more proof that - the Mickelbergs had African Gold off the Zyptdorf wreck, - that the Gold recovered by bent Police Hancock, was that African Gold.

The fact that African Gold was handed in to a TV News Reporter is the key.

Everything points to the Gold recovered by Police never finding its way BACK to the Perth Mint!

Why would any minted bars from the Perth Mint, contain Afrcan Gold? They wouldn;t they would contain West Australian Gold from Kalgoorlie or Coolgardie or any of the west Australian Goldfields... not African Gold!.

Lastly - any involvement of Minelabs.

No ones suggesting any direct involvement of the Minelabs company - except that whoever claimed to find these nuggets (natural or man made) chose to photograph them with a Minelabs GPX7000 machine, which I pointed out would be exactly what I would do if I were lookingto create the impression this gold was found int he olden triangle.

It is possible by assay to determine the origin of gold in its raw form.

Has any assay proved that the Nugget I posted about from Carnarvon (a location only 100 miles from the zyptdorf wreck expected to contain African gold) contains west Australian gold or could it be African Gold?

Has anyone assayed the nugget photographed with the Minelabs detector claimed to be found in Victorian gold field for Victorian Goldfields sourced gold?.

There's still the missing gold recovered from the Mickelbergs (and pretty highly likely to be African Gold) yet to be accounted for!

There's possibly a large amount of West Ozzie Gold from the Kelhets murders yet to be accounted for.

Whatever gold was stolen in the Perth Mint Swindle theft is also yet to be accounted for!.

And of course whatever African gold was recovered from the Zyptdorp - this alsois yet to be accounted for!.

Originally the Mickelbergs according to press reports at the time - attempted to account for some of their ill gotten gold (whether Shipwreck or stolen Perth mint bars) subsequently sold to Alan Bond as the Yellow Rose Of Texas nugget), by pretending to find a big nugget with a newly invested at the time whites metal detector.

There are at lest 3 missing Dutch East Indiamen (possibly containing African gold) yet to be officially recovered!.

There's a few have been recovered (yet strangely no gold treasure at all in the West Australian Maritime Museum!).

Yet we are supposed to believe that ALL the publicized nuggets are all natural nuggets found legitimately by prospectors with Minelabs detectors!

The cynic inside me says that we have several major large quantities of Gold gone missing, we have murders, mysteries of quashed charges, Police recovery's of gold that never went back to the Mint, missing dead prospectors, Police Detective inspectors who retired and wait for it - bought a hotel in the Goldfields, blown up in their car etc!

My own contention is that the moment an of these nuggets are reported they SHOULD be assayed for at the minimum, country of origin of the gold!

There's WAY too much legitimizing of stolen Gold in Australia by "finding large nuggets".

The invention of the Gold detector machine has been waaay too convenient for way too many people over the years, who bu one and just stumble across huge nuggets.

What are the odds of a old guy in Carnarvon, less than 100 miles from the scene of the Zyptdorp shipwreck, known to have had African Gold on it, suddenly 20 years later (when all the media whoo har from the Mickelbergs case has died down) suddenly being in possession of such a large nugget?

I smell a very big fat rat is all I am saying.

It's up to others to draw their own conclusions.

Why would Minelabs want to kill the fairy tail of finding large nuggets with their machines - its the biggest FREE national / international advertising campaign you could ask for!

You know the BEST guaranteed way to find a huge nugget? = Easy - start out with a large quantity of gold and make your own!.

Lets not forget this little gem from a then serving WA Policeman about WA Police Involvement (Det Inspector Don Hancock again) with Stolen Gold....

On 2 December 1984, I was transferred to the Central Police Station in uniform branch and during routine patrols, I noticed that the Great West Gold exchange had moved its business premises to William Street, near the intersection of Brisbane Street, Northbridge. I again renewed my acquaintance with Mr Bryer in early 1995 and visited him occasionally during my patrols. During one such visit, I informed Mr Bryer that I was soon to commence my annual leave. Mr Bryer asked me if I could supervise his premises while he went on a business trip to Queensland where he was negotiating a business deal with a publicly listed company called Ariadne Limited. I took the opportunity to do so. On one day during the week whilst I was supervising the premises, a staff member drew my attention to a male person attending the business premises with a significant quantity of gold to sell. The staff member informed me that this same person had frequented the premises on about six previous occasions and had sold similar amounts of gold.
On each occasion this gold was in excess of 99% pure and she suspected it to be gold bullion melted down. The male person informed the staff member that he would return within a fortnight with two kilograms of gold of the same quality. I was told this person gave the name of Tony Carbone who I subsequently learned was an associate of John Asciak, Geoffrey Barlow and Brian Chambers, all of them being known drug traffickers. After Carbone left the premises, I examined the gold he had sold to the Great West Gold Exchange, and the register recording the past sales of gold so that I could note the previous times Carbone had sold gold bullion to the Great West Gold Exchange. I wrote down the times, dates, quantity of gold, the amount paid in exchange for the gold and also the assay results and amount paid by the Perth Mint to the Great West Gold Exchange. At the time when I took these notes, I asked the staff member to keep my inquiry confidential from Mr Bryer as I intended to have a covert investigation carried out to ascertain the origin of the gold. I strongly suspected that this gold might have been stolen from the Perth Mint some years previously.
I then contacted Detective Inspector William Round who was a personal friend of mine and was also the second in charge of the Task Force investigating the Perth Mint swindle. I advised Detective Inspector Round what had occurred and requested that he place Carbone under Police surveillance so that evidence could be gleaned regarding the suspected gold and the antecedent details obtained of Carbone’s movements. On the following day, I was contacted by Sergeant Peter Grant who called me from Kalgoorlie and advised me that he had just been transferred to the Gold Stealing Staff and that Detective Chief Superintendent Don Hancock had authorised him to return to Perth to conduct an investigation into the information I had supplied to Detective Inspector Round. I was extremely surprised that Hancock knew about this investigation as I had expected Round to only advise the surveillance team.
A day of so later Grant attended at my private residence and I reiterated to him the importance of confidentiality as I was investigating a client of the Great Western Gold Exchange without the proprietor’s knowledge and I needed to protect my informant. I informed Sergeant Grant that I had made arrangements with the staff member to contact me and advise me when Carbone was to return to the Great Western Gold Exchange, to sell the two kilos of gold. Some two weeks later the staff member called me at home to advise that Carbone had been in touch and stated that he would be in the following morning with the gold. I immediately contacted Sergeant Grant and asked him to alert the Police Surveillance Squad in readiness for their job.
The following morning I received a telephone call from the staff member who was very agitated. When I inquired what the problem was, she told me that Mr Bryer had said he had noticed two male persons loitering and acting very suspiciously near the premises and suspected that they were preparing to rob the Great Western Gold Exchange. She then advised him that the two ‘suspects’ might in fact be police officers conducting an investigation on my behalf. Shortly later when Carbone arrived at the premises these two persons entered the shop and identified themselves as detectives and apprehended Carbone. I understand that the two detectives back at HQ then requested to view the Register and compared the dates that Carbone had previously attended at the premises with the times, dates and details that I had already provided Sergeant Grant. I also understand that Carbone was taken away for questioning and his vehicle and premises were searched. I cannot recall if any charges were preferred against Carbone but in later discussions with Sergeant Grant, I was advised that no gold had been recovered. I am unaware if the two detectives took possession of, or if they photocopied the register but these details should be contained in the relevant police file recording this incident.
I have always considered that this investigation was purposely carried out in a deliberately incompetent manner with a view to compromise the investigation so that the truth and origin of this gold would never be established. In May 2004, Frank continued his account of bizarre police conduct in another affidavit including the extraordinary response to his allegations of corruption when he was appointed to investigate his own investigation and to report the outcome to one of the senior officers he had accused! During my police career, I was appointed as a probationary detective on 2 December 1974, and was promoted through the ranks of the Criminal Investigation Branch, where I worked for 10 years, reaching the rank of detective sergeant. Whilst in the CIB I worked in various squads including Midland C.I.B., motor squad, combined operations, dealers’ squad, drug squad, general crime squad and fraud squad. I was transferred to the uniform branch on 2nd December 1984 after being charged with a disciplinary offence. I remained in the uniform branch until May 1987 when I was transferred to the liquor and gaming branch. In December 1991, I went on sick leave after reporting alleged corrupt or improper conduct by Detective Chief Superintendent Don Hancock and Chief Superintendent Les McMillan to the head of the Police Internal Affairs Branch, Superintendent Ayton, who then instructed me to investigate my own allegations and report my findings to Chief Superintendent McMillan. I was discharged from the police service on medical grounds in April 1993 at the rank of First Class Sergeant.

Everyone else is more than welcome to believe in impossibly big nuggets being found by metal detectors, and ignore all the factual evidence of the more than 20 years of newspaper articles and strange legal cases, deaths & disappearances - involving huge quantities of stolen gold!.

Me - I am not so easily suckered.

I got over believing in fairy's at the bottom of the garden while still aged in single digits.

Growing old is unavoidable - growing up is optional.

That so many refuse to grow up & choose to believe in fairy's at the bottom of the garden is up to them (and finding huge nuggets with Minelabs detectors) is up to them.

You don't see me rushing out to buy a Minelab detector after publication of these news paper articles - I'd be MORE likely to rush out and buy Minelabs shares & join in on & profit from the deliberate ruse!

What others choose to do is up to them!