Missing miner ‘hiding’ to dodge debt
An Auckland man who was trying to bankrupt missing goldminer Hugh McAllister believes he has gone into hiding to escape a $140,000 debt.
A Sunday Star-Times investigation has found that McAllister was due in the High Court in Greymouth the week after he disappeared to answer bankruptcy proceedings filed by Auckland digger driver Graham Smith, who had invested in McAllister’s company, Goldsouth Ltd.
McAllister, 70, was last seen at his claim on the Greenstone River near Kumara on January 21, 2010.
His ute, with a jar of gold inside worth about $15,000, was found six days later.
Extensive searches and police inquiries over the past two years have failed to find any sign of him, although there have been reported sightings.
This month, through Crimestoppers, McAllister’s family offered a $25,000 reward for information on his disappearance.
Smith said he gave McAllister $100,000 around 2005 that was supposed to secure him a 9 per cent shareholding in Goldsouth and a share of the profits of a claim on the Mikonui River near Ross in South Westland. He said McAllister told him he already had the claim, but he did not secure it until months later and never developed it because he could not get access from the landowner.
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The Economic Development Ministry says an exploration permit in McAllister’s name was issued for 72 hectares near the Mikonui River mouth in 2004 and was due to expire in 2007, but he applied to have it extended.
The application was declined the following year ‘‘on the grounds that he had not substantially complied with the conditions of the permit, including not undertaking any groundwork, including geological sampling and a programme of test pitting’’.
Smith said McAllister never registered his shareholding in the company.
He tried repeatedly to get his money back, and in 2009 McAllister signed an agreement to pay him $140,000, including interest. He paid $10,000, but then all payments stopped.
Companies Office records show McAllister vacated his shareholding in Goldsouth in March 2009. Smith said that left him with no way of getting his money, ‘‘so I said stuff it, I’ll put him broke’’, meaning he would apply to have McAllister declared bankrupt.
A friend of McAllister’s, Paroa goldminer Graham Jacobs, said when a man arrived at McAllister’s rented home in Kumara to serve him with the court papers, people at the property told him McAllister was not there, but he eventually came out.
Smith said he had been interviewed twice in Auckland by a detective sergeant, and gave a statement each time. ‘‘His kid said I’d want to kill him. I didn’t want to kill him. I just wanted 140,000 bucks,’’ Smith said.
He described McAllister as ‘‘devious’’ and ‘‘cunning’’ and believed he was still around. ‘‘I reckon he’s hiding.’’
He said police came to the conclusion that he wanted McAllister alive, not dead.
‘‘The whole thing would have been blown open [if McAllister had gone to court],’’ he said. ‘‘I would have been left with the [Greenstone] mine probably. It’s a hunk of rich dirt he’s got there.’’
McAllister’s family did not respond to emailed questions about Smith’s claims.
Detective Paul Heathcote, of Nelson, said police had been unable to find any connection between McAllister’s financial disputes and his disappearance and kept an open mind on whether he was alive or dead.