Beware of fraudsters, Chilean miners advise boys

SANTIAGO: Guard against exploitation: that is the message Chilean miners have offered the 12 Thai boys and their football coach following the harrowing ordeal of spending 18 days trapped in a cave.

Even before the clothes of the Wild Boar football team players had dried following the last dramatic escape mission on Tuesday from the flooded cave, plans were already being made to turn their heroic tale into a Hollywood movie.

Eight years ago, 33 Chilean miners were stuck underground for 69 days after a cave-in, before their torment was turned into a motion picture starring Antonio Banderas.

But although The 33 grossed US$25mil (RM100mil) at the box office, the miners never saw a penny of that.

“Hopefully they’ll make a film, a television series or a best-selling novel, but they will do it well, are smart and don’t get taken for a ride by fraudsters,” said Mario Sepulveda ( pic), who was played by Banderas in The 33.

The boys are aged 11 to 16 and their coach is 25, whereas the Chil- ean miners were all grown men.

Many of them have suffered since their traumatic experience in the San Jose mine in the Atacama desert.

“The most important thing is that the authorities and their families protect these kids because many people just want to take advantage,” said Luis Urzua, another miner.

On Tuesday night, the managing partner of US faith-based production house Pure Flix, Michael Scott, revealed on Twitter his plans to turn the story into a film.

But before worrying about how to sell their stories, Urzua warned that recovering from the “experience of a lifetime” would not be easy.

“It’s been eight years, but there are still many things we can’t overcome,” he added.

Another miner, Jose Ojeda, had to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

And there is bitterness at having been exploited by lawyers, producers and others who wanted to benefit from their story.

“Once they got the information, they disappeared,” said Urzua, adding that they were badly advised and fell for promises that they would be made millionaires, so they “ceded all (intellectual) rights for life”.

He is amongst a group of miners who want to rescind that decision.

Despite spending over two months 600m below the surface, “we can’t even sell one line of the 33,” he lamented.

“They destroyed us.” Sepulveda, though, had faith in the boys, saying the “strength of these boys is different to ours”.

“If they keep training, they’ll handle it really well, as long as they stick together,” he said.