We almost missed this one, but luckily Otto covered it (the Inca Kola News is a must-read for anyone interested in mining, Latin American stocks, commodities and politics).
Anyway, it seems that convicted narco Richard Fifer (yes, he is a convicted drug trafficker, read it here) is making a come-back at the offices of Petaquilla Minerals, which in turn owns Petaquilla Gold and Petaquilla Hydraulics and so on. At least, that's what Lina Vega Abad wrote in her weekly column in La Prensa. And Fifer, in Otto's words, "has been causing seven types of caca at head office, puking and farting all over the people that previously eased him out". And now the stock is going down. It went up as soon as he was expelled from the company.
Abad also writes that with Fifer came his entourage (mostly family) who all wanted to be on the payroll. And that, despite all the lies, the frauds, the environmental mischief and the fact that Fifer still has embezzlement charges to deal with, somewhere, Petaquilla now gets red carpet treatment at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. Change!
To fully appreciate what a total trainwreck of a fraud Petaquilla really is, read the stories about them on Inca Kola. More info, pictures and video in Spanish on the CIAM Panama website.