Copper Scam (Paperback) | Released: 12 May 2010

Albert Symington, a commodity trader, negotiates the sale of copper from Campolito Copper Mine (CCM) in Northern Chile to the Metals Commission of China. Albert or Bert's copper sale appears to be concluded with a 'satisfied buyer' and a 'satisfied seller'. Then another party considered the Chinese copper transaction to be a dubious opportunity for enrichment ... from a financial and processing perspective! An old disused copper processing plant is offered to the Chinese Minerals Commission for installation at CCM, but on certain 'conditions'.Igor Bronsky from the Ukraine, sells surplus ore processing plants. One of these plants is offered to the Chinese Metals Commission for installation at CCM. Igor enlists the help of Tony Estorro, a shady lawyer from Santiago with intimate contacts in the CCM working force. Tony can only partly deliver on his conniving promises and lands in serious trouble. A race across three continents ensues and the heinous deeds of the villainous protagonists are recorded in exciting and tense detail with an intriguing finale! Albert is CEO of Symington Metals, a small but very active international commodity trading company with no more than a couple of traders and secretaries. 'Commodities', he quips to himself, 'sometimes have minds of their own and are definitely not lifeless minerals and metals traded on world markets. The only probable solution to any challenge is that we talk its language and understand what's being said.' As he approaches a traffic intersection, the traffic light changes to amber and then to red and Albert slows down and prepares to stop. At that moment a black Mercedes limousine with darkened side windows draws up parallel to Albert's Range Rover, and he notices the small red flag with a yellow star attached to the left front fender of the limousine. That may just be part of the solution.' Albert, during his most recent visit to Hong Kong and China seemingly completed an agreement for the supply of almost half a million tons of high quality electrolytic copper to be sourced from a Chilean copper mine for shipment to several Chinese ports, mostly in Southern China. 'On the face of it, everything seemed fairly straight forward', Albert thought, 'except the ore has to be extracted, then milled to certain specs and processed into copper plates or cathodes.' This in itself appears acceptable, except the Chilean Government now appears to insist, somewhat belatedly, that at least a portion of the shipment be beneficiated into downstream products such as copper cabling and/or copper tubing in Chile ... before the shipment to China. He paused briefly, looked at his notes and continued, "Now understand that we had a few tequilas after the signing and my Chilean friend was in an exceptionally jovial mood, so something or somebody radically changed his frame of mind, because even his choice of words seemed strange. I then reminded him that Mr Wang Zhen and his party were returning to Shanghai immediately after the signing of the LOI, so trying to contact them would be a waste of time. I suggested to Mr Gonsalves that we leave it be for a couple of days and I would contact him later and try to find ways past this hiccup, although I knew at that point that it was probably a lot bigger than a mere hiccup. I can only speculate at this juncture ... that the news of the impending copper export deal with China was flashed back to his homeland and more than just the corks of tequila bottles were popping on the home side around Santiago. This was when, I think, some political hombre took the gap for whatever reason, and stuck the 'proverbial stick' in the bicycle's spokes."
About the Author: I obtained a Bachelor of Commerce degree at the University of South Africa part time, majoring in Accounting and Business Economics, and spent almost twenty years working in administrative and accounting functions in banking, engineering and trading companies. Then on joining the Government Service in South Africa, I found myself crisscrossing the continents of the world for almost twelve years undertaking forensic and anti-dumping investigations. During these travels, I concluded that there are many possible stories to be told, about the fascinating world of international trade. Millions of people crisscross the airports of the world each moment of every day and night, and each of these persons have their own singular objective ... whatever story that may be. I retired and started my own consultancy on international trade and customs issues, again traversing the world, now looking from outside to the inside ... metaphorically speaking. This is my first novel, but I have written possibly hundreds of actuality reports on investigations over the years, depicting trading related situations in many countries.