American businessmen accused of using fake gold mine to get $1m from investors

A Michigan-based businessman has been charged with several counts of fraud as a US District Court processed a complain accusing him of stealing over $1 million from financiers lured into investing in a fake Filipino gold mine.

According to MLive, the scheme began in 2007, when Freeman “Buck” Carl Reed and partner Gary Edward Degler told investors they had access to “a secret dig site in a mountain in the Philippines that contained gold bars left by the Japanese Military during World War II.”

The bogus mine was supposed to have belonged to Ferdinand Marcos, the country’s former dictator.