Dr. Peretti showed his previously discussed DVD video of his trip to the Tibet mines with well documented mine owner, Li Tong. The video proved the published claims that Li Tong’s crew were caught salting the ground around the claimed mine. The video showed graphically that when Dr. Peretti wanted to inspect a section of the mine area that should have contained andesine (if the claim was authentic) that Li Tong sent his staff ahead of Dr. Peretti and they could easily be seen dropping andesine on the group ahead of Dr. Peretti’s arrival. This was astounding and raised the one question that many asked:
The Peretti report was released at approximately the same time as the previously discussed report published by the Gem-A regarding an expedition to Tibet by the National Gem Testing Lab of China. The NGTC also visited mine locations owned by Li Tong. Their report makes three important points that directly support Dr. Peretti’s published findings. These points include:
- The NGTC group found a warehouse in Tibet with “hundreds of kilos” of “red feldspar” that tested to have been been "subjected to high temperature treatment with colouring elements added."
- Interviews by the Chinese NGTC group with local Tibetan citizens revealed that the local Tibetan people “had neither seen nor heard of red feldspar found in Tibet.” (direct contradiction to the Laurs/Hughes/Abduriyim report).
- The NGTC issued this statement: “In our opinion, the red feldspar samples that we collected and recovered from the supposed mining areas during our field investigations were deliberately planted on the ground surface and within loose surface soil.”
This opinion by the National Gem Testing Center of China was confirmed yesterday by the video evidence provided by Dr. Peretti in follow-up to his previously published report.
It should be noted that Li Tong, reported mine owner and leader of the Tibet andesine organization, was personally present…. and in the video…during the actual salting activities in the Peretti video.
One interesting question as to why these two expeditions found salted mines while the Laurs/Hughes/Abduriyim expedition reportedly found andesine under an “undisturbed bush” that prompted Richard Hughes to issue what we call his “Mission Accomplished” article. (The actual title of Hughes’ article is both inflammatory and insulting to our US President so we won’t repeat it.) One well-respected mine owner and ISG Community member raised the question: “Don’t they know how easy it is to take a piece of steel rebar and run a small hole into the ground under a bush, drop in a piece of andesine, and cover it up leaving no evidence of anything disturbed on the ground?”
That was the second profound question of the day, after the question why Li Tong took Peretti to a mine location that required his crew to salt the ground. Given that Li Tong was shown with his crew as they salted the mine, it is reasonable to assume that Mr. Li may have a piece of steel rebar sitting around somewhere.
The bottom line is that we have spoken to many miners who have evaluated these claims by the Laurs/Hughes/Abduriyim expedition report by Hughes, as well as Li Tong and the whole Tibet andesine organization, and just shake their heads that anyone could be so gullible as to believe these.
The high points of the day were all of the outstanding people we got to meet and greet. Due to the confidentiality agreement we will not name them here, but to everyone who we had the opportunity to meet at GILC we just say: Thank you. To all of you. It was an outstanding group.
On a final note: I have to once again congratulate the work of the ICA, their Board of Directors, and all of the members. I believe the ICA is the key organization to the healthy future of our colored gemstone industry.
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