Despite being an undischarged bankrupt, Brisbane entrepreneur David Catsoulis has big hopes for his newest venture — a multi-billion-dollar gold mining project in the depths of the Papua New Guinea jungle.

Speaking to The Weekend Australian, Catsoulis says the new venture is about his family legacy, giving back to the local community, and according to capital raising documents, making a fortune for investors.

Catsoulis is a founder and the chief geologist of PGL Gold and, as a bankrupt, he is not and cannot be a director or shareholder. PGL reportedly plans to mine initially alluvial gold from prospects in PNG’s remote northwest, near the town of Maprik.

Catsoulis said the Maprik project was “progressing very well’’, and he expected mining leases would be granted in the “next couple of weeks’’. An email seen by The Weekend Australian corroborates this.

“The project’s had a great amount of due diligence done on the resource. The resource stacks up incredibly well,” Catsoulis said.

“We’re in the process of resourcing the development of the future mine.’’

Catsoulis said the numbers presented to investors are “conservative’’, with the company claiming the gold resources could be three times what was set out in September 2019.

“There have been seven viable sites that have been estimated to host 5000kg each (881,500 ounces) each of high grade alluvial gold,’’ the IM says.

At today’s prices, that’s more than $2.1bn worth of gold.

Catsoulis says while the dollar figures were large, he thought of it as a “legacy project for my family and my mother in particular’’.

“I can’t say I was really looking for this project when we found it.

“I was on a family legacy project for my mother, to actually go and retrace the routes of my father’s wartime history in the region … and she wanted to go back and effectively see where my father was.

“He spoke quite stoically about the region and the efforts of the local people during that time and I was really looking for a way in which, logistically we could get her up there … and talk to some local people to see if we could get out to the war memorials and so forth.

“Probably the first night I was there I think I had probably 30 people coming to my door in the hotel wanting to sell me gold.

“I just gave them 50 kina and said, ‘no, not interested’.

“I had one guy come in and he said I’ve got a very large amount of gold I’d like you to buy’ … and I looked at it and thought, ‘that’s just incredible’.

“The amount, the size, the grains of gold were all fingernail size and above and I thought ‘where has it come from?’

“I’d never seen it before in my professional career. One thing led to another and about a week later we were on site at a place called Maprik panning gold like I’d never seen before.

“That small starting base ended up being the starting place for my current endeavour for this project.

“What we found in the end was my father’s wartime history actually started in Maprik where he was deployed as part of the 28,000-strong Australian forces that then moved on down into Wewak and that was the end of the Second World War.’’

Sourced By: The Weekend Australian

In his recently published book, ‘Wild Colonial Greeks’, Sydney writer and historian Peter Prineas attempts to explore the true origins of Greek history in Australia.

The book takes readers on a journey through colonial Australian history as the author looks to uncover the first Greek arrival to Australia.

One candidate, who is referenced multiple times throughout the book, is a Greek from Corfu named George Manuel, who was living in Australia in 1823. This was six years before the arrival of the seven pirate-convicts currently considered to be Australia’s first Greeks.

The book also shows how Greeks were viewed by the mainstream press and chronicles at the time, bringing to life the goldfields doctor Spiridion Candiottis, who clashed resoundingly with newspapermen in Victoria and Queensland.

See below for a small extract from the book, Wild Colonial Greeks:

It seems to have been generally accepted that apart from the seven pirates, the only other person of Greek origin to come to Australia as a convict, was a man named Joseph Simmons or Simmonds. He is recorded in convict archives as a seaman aged 40, a single man, an illiterate, and in religion a Protestant, who gave his ‘native place’ as Greece. Gilchrist, however, describes him as an Ionian Islander and, ‘in fact a Greek Jew who landed in Sydney from the convict ship Isabella IV in March 1832’, after having been ‘convicted at the Dorsett Assizes and sentenced to transportation for life for stealing a handkerchief’.

It is surprising that another convict with the decidedly Greek name of Timoleon Vlasto has been overlooked by historians. It is even more surprising when one considers the infamy that Vlasto acquired in 1849 for stealing ancient Greek coins worth a small fortune from the British Museum in London. His trial was widely reported in the British press and ended with a sentence of transportation for a term of seven years to Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania), where he arrived near the end of May 1851. Timoleon Vlasto’s crime and his Greek identity – albeit that of a diaspora Greek – was also reported in Australian newspapers.

Fruit Growers Victoria is urging people to get a fruit harvesting job this summer as they fear crops may go to waste due to a significant lack of workers for the upcoming season.

Farmers have been unable to fill their vacant positions as the pandemic has meant most international working holiday visa holders have returned home. It is hoped that Victorians looking for work will consider fruit harvesting this season, and the Government is encouraging people to apply with a new incentive fund.

Most of the available work is in the Shepparton and Goulburn Valley areas and those who relocate to take up the short-term agricultural positions (minimum six weeks) can apply for Government Relocation Assistance. The assistance package is up to $6,000 for Australian job seekers and up to $2,000 for international job seekers.

“Our usual workers that are essential in ensuring our seasonal fruit crops are available in supermarkets and markets are gone,” said Michael Crisera, Growers Services Manager at Fruit Growers Victoria.

“The Victorian fruit industry is at risk and the repercussions of not having enough workers will not only impact the farmers themselves but the consumer. The consequences will be significant wastage, lack of income for the growers and rising prices for customers.

“No experience is needed to work on the Harvest Trail and there are different jobs across the season such as fruit picking, packing, thinning and pruning. It is a great opportunity to experience regional Victoria, try new things, learns some new skills and meet new people.”

Fruit grown in Victoria that requires harvesting this season includes nectarines, peaches, plums, pears and apples.