Shadow Empire

Chapter 973 Who Stole My Mine?

When they are wealthy, they are unlikely to notice if they lose tens or even hundreds of dollars from their wallets.

Even if they discover something is amiss, they are very unlikely to find out where the money was spent or why the case hasn't been closed.

Because they are now very wealthy, they don't hesitate as much when making purchases, and they don't remember many terms and prices in pursuit of the ultimate cost-effectiveness.

People only become very sensitive to the amount of money when they are destitute.

It can be accurate to very small numbers, even after the decimal point.

Diego is facing this problem now; he is short of money, so he values ​​money more than before.

He took some time these past few days to check the money he had left, trying to see how much more he could scrape together.

Jedd has already contacted him and will arrange for a new specialist to replace Fernandez and communicate with him about future matters.

During the phone call, the president of the Czech Republic discussed the joint funding by both sides to help the Rapa government forces complete part of their equipment upgrades.

For example, replacing one-third of the soldiers' equipment would immediately reduce the financial pressure. At the same time, the bullets saved by the one-third of the soldiers after the equipment replacement would be equivalent to a 50% increase in bullets for the other two-thirds of the soldiers.

This will allow them to continue fighting for a while longer.

Then, after fighting for a while in the next phase, they changed their gear again, and finally gradually replaced all their equipment.

This proposal is excellent, and President Czerd said they are willing to contribute a larger portion, approximately 60/40.

They contribute 60%, and the Lapa government contributes 40%.

Of course, this money wasn't given away for nothing; they needed to hand over some mineral resources to JED for development.

This is a very simple way of cooperating.

In the short term, it's not really a bad deal for Lapa to hand over some of its mineral resources to the Geed people for development, since they suddenly received such a large sum of money.

Even if those mines were sold, they might not fetch such a high price.

In the long run, the Czech Republic has not suffered any losses.

These high-quality mineral resources will eventually become a continuous source of wealth, possibly two, three, or even more times what they paid out!

One can solve their biggest problem right now, and the other can gain long-term benefits. It seems like a win-win situation, and no one loses.

So now Diego wants to know how much money he can raise without using his federal bank account, and he also wants to know about the mining situation of the mines under his control.

But when he opened the income and expenditure records compiled from various parts of Lapa over the past three months, he was surprised to find that under the mineral income, there were only a few small amounts recorded.

He immediately called the butler over, pointed to the mineral resources item in the ledger, and asked, "Why has the income from mineral resources been so low for the past three months?"

As he spoke, he flipped through the pages of past income and expenditure records, saying, "The mining revenue in the last three months is less than a fraction of what it was in the previous month. What exactly happened?"

The butler was also a little confused. "I'll go and find out," he said.

Diego's face clearly showed a hint of anger. "If they think I can't hold on any longer, then send people over to teach them a lesson. Arrest all the managers at the mine. I want to know where they got the nerve to embezzle my money!"

The biggest parasite in Lapa is furious because someone else has stolen his money, which is probably one of the funniest jokes of the year.

The butler quickly left Diego's office. Diego also had his own office. After all, the butler was practically a part of the owner, not to mention that Diego often didn't bother with many things and left everything to the butler.

So the butler also has his own office, and he has a lot of work to do.

Back in his office, he first dialed the number for the gold mine.

Gold mining revenue accounts for over 30% of the total revenue from mineral resources each month, making it the largest single source of income, bar none.

He made two calls, but no one answered. He had a vague feeling that something was wrong.

He then took out a phone book, searched through it for a long time, finally found a number, and dialed it.

As soon as the call was connected, without waiting for the other party to identify themselves, he asked in a slightly annoyed tone, "Why can't I get through to either of the gold mines?"

The person on the other end of the phone paused for a moment before realizing who it was. He quickly said, "Butler, I don't know anything about these things either. Should I look into it?"

The butler's tone was somewhat stern, "No ore is coming down from the mountain, and you haven't noticed anything wrong?"

The person on the other end of the phone immediately replied, "Didn't we say before that some mining areas had already suspended operations?"

"I thought the area had expanded, so I wasn't surprised that they didn't send any ore. I'll go investigate now and call you back later."

The butler grunted in agreement. "No need to call me. Just call President Diego. I'll be with him."

"Also, as soon as possible!"

After hanging up the phone, he returned to the presidential office. "I called the gold mine, but no one answered. I've already sent someone to investigate."

Of all these mineral resources, gold mines are relatively valuable.

The price of gemstones is highly volatile because it is influenced by many factors, such as size, color vibrancy, and clarity.

Sometimes, even after a year of mining, no stunning gems can be found, so gold mines are still the primary source of income.

Diego nodded, but did not respond to the butler, and continued to examine the ledger.

The sharp decline in his mineral resource revenue suddenly gave him a possibility that he himself was unwilling to admit: someone was taking advantage of his money for their own benefit!
He needs to know exactly how these people did it, how much money they took from him, and how they took it.

Unfortunately, he couldn't tell these things from just these numbers, but he could tell whether the income was normal.

After an unknown amount of time, perhaps an hour, the phone in front of the president rang. He glanced at the butler, then picked up the phone. "This is the Presidential Office."

"Mr. President?"

"I am... The housekeeper just asked me to investigate the production halt. I don't know how to tell you this, it might be a big deal!"

Diego frowned. "What big thing?"

The man swallowed hard. “Almost all of your mines have been acquired by the Federation. Only one aluminum plant and one iron ore mine that has been in operation for many years still belong to you.”

"But who knows when they might become federal subjects too."

Diego's eyes widened in surprise!
He's been focusing on training his eyes lately, staring at them wide open all the time.

"Are you kidding me?" he said, coming to his senses and emphasizing the truth of the matter. "If you were kidding, it's not too late to apologize now."

"If I find out you're playing me for a fool, I guarantee you'll regret what you've done!"

The person on the other end of the line sounded panicked, but not like they were lying. "Your Excellency, I'm really not lying. I've already found out about this through some connections."

"We even called our mineral resources management office, and they confirmed that there have been frequent cases of mineral resources being acquired and having their registrations changed during this period!"

Hearing this, Diego could no longer sit still. He placed his hands on the table to stand up. "Who? Who stole my mine?"

"Happy cooperation!"

In Zhuolan's hotel, several businessmen from the Federation and several mine owners signed a new acquisition agreement.

However, this time it was not Lance that acquired these minerals, but a newly established 'New Hope Mining Company'.

After they signed the agreement and shook hands, the federal agents sent the former mine owners away.

Instead of returning to their previous room, they took a car directly to the outskirts of the country and met Lance at Lance Manor.

“Mr. Lance…” the group greeted Lance one by one. Lance came out from behind his desk and asked them to sit down on the sofa. “Was it smooth?” he asked.

The leader of the group nodded. "Very smoothly, Mr. Lance. We have signed transfer agreements for eleven mines in the past two weeks. The documents are all here."

As he spoke, the man took the briefcase from his deputy. Inside were eleven transfer agreements and property certificates, all of which were in perfect order.

After checking each document one by one and confirming that there were no problems, Lance returned the documents to them.

"How much did it cost in total?"

As the leader put the documents away, he replied with a smile, "Less than two hundred thousand."

New Hope Mining Company was a shell company full of "hope" that Lance and Senator Cleveland co-founded to harvest wealth in the financial markets.

Hearing the representative utter such a low figure, Lance was somewhat expecting it, but he was still surprised by the price.

This means that, on average, the price per mine is less than 20,000 federal soles.

"Most of the mines here have been exhausted, resources are depleted, and some have no value for development."

"So they are very cheap."

"If we really continue mining, we can make some money. After deducting all costs, we might still make tens of thousands of yuan."

Lance smiled slightly when he heard the number. "Actually, it's quite a lot. A stable return of 30% is, strictly speaking, a high-quality asset."

The representative chuckled twice in agreement, "So now we need to give them a makeover, and we might need Mr. Lance's cooperation on some things next."

Lance did not refuse. "I will have my men follow you."

After discussing some details with Lance, these people left. The companies in the Federation have all been registered and are now waiting to be "listed".

The federal Financial Securities Regulation Act has not yet been formally implemented. Although Congress has passed it, it will take some time before it is put into effect.

Capitalists and politicians are all in cahoots. Now that politicians want to rein in the financial system, they will definitely make some "vicious dogs" leave the scene before they take action.

This was also a very opportune time. Before the implementation of regulations, any company that met the annual profit and net market value standards could freely list on major exchanges.

New Hope Mining currently holds mining assets worth approximately 70 to 80 million federal soles, with management rights and actual profits belonging to "New Hope Asset Management Company." Therefore, there is absolutely nothing wrong with "New Hope" listing on the federal financial market.

It's impossible for those in the federal government to verify whether these mineral deposits are genuine, whether they can produce such a large amount of mineral resources, and what the final profit will be.

They would come from the federal government to this chaotic Rapa to get specific information, and they would require the listed company to "prove itself," which means to provide operating reports and profit certificates for the past two years, as well as some written materials, photos, and possibly some video materials, to increase its persuasiveness.

Then it can be listed on the stock exchange.

This period was perhaps the most booming and wildest time for the federal financial industry, because everything seemed primitive, barbaric, unrestrained, and threatening.

People frequently witness examples of the "Federal Dream" becoming a reality in the financial markets, such as an investor whose net worth multiplied several times in just a few days, or someone accumulating capital in a short period of time.

Most of these are very likely false; people are making up these lies to get more people to join this industry this year.

Those who truly reap the wealth are the people who are unseen by others.

Just like the soon-to-be-listed and wildly successful "New Hope," with the help of these professionals, a super dark horse with a market value about to be deciphered and annual profits exceeding ten million is about to emerge. Who wouldn't be crazy about it?

Lance was also paying close attention to this matter. Although he didn't own many shares, if the stock ignited the market, it would definitely be a considerable sum.

These people went to different, operating mines and took numerous photos and even videos of workers digging.

Many of them use recent federal newspapers, as well as newspapers from other places, as "timestamps".

The dates on photos from this period are not readily apparent. To prove that a photo was taken at a certain time or within a certain time period, people often held up a newspaper from that day or a recent day when the photo was taken to increase its persuasiveness.

After all, there is no mature photo forgery scheme yet. If a photo is forged, there will always be a way to detect it.

They also took away some of the mining farm's operating records from the past two years. These records needed to be embellished before being submitted to the Federal Exchange for all investors and stock brokerage firms to review.

These counterfeiters are professionals, so to get them all hooked, you have to produce something genuine.

In an era where making small money is easy but making big money is difficult, an annual return of over ten percent, coupled with its financial attributes, would drive people crazy.

In the evening, Vargas (the former owner of the silver mine) called. "In the afternoon, Diego's butler called me and asked me to explain why I sold the mine, who I sold it to, and how much I sold it for."

"I called you this afternoon, but I couldn't get through."

Lance was on the phone all afternoon, so it's normal that he couldn't get through.

He knew Diego would definitely find out about this, and he had some guesses that it might happen soon, since he really was out of money.

When people run out of money, they want to figure out how much they can still come up with, and once they start investigating, problems are bound to be uncovered.

Did you tell them?

Vargas shook his head, though Lance couldn't see him doing so over the phone. "No, no, I didn't say anything. I just brushed them off for now."

“I was worried that something I said might affect you, so I didn’t tell them anything.”

Lance was very satisfied. Actually, it didn't matter if he said anything; his procedures were reasonable and legal, and no one could find fault with them.

Once he's eaten these things, there's no way he can spit them out. Even if the other person is Diego, the president of this country, there's absolutely no way he could do that.

He traveled thousands of miles from the Federation to this poor and backward place to live a hard life, not to make sacrifices.

Ultimately, it all comes down to money and influence.

"If they call you again or find you, just tell them the truth. It won't affect me."

“Bar, you should know that you are afraid of Diego because you are a Lapa.”

“I’m not afraid of him because I’m a member of the Federation.”

"correct!"

“You are a federal citizen now, so you have nothing to be afraid of him. If he hurts you, you can call the embassy. I believe the federal government will be very interested in the fact that you have been harmed.”

Why did Diego never consider directly confronting Lance despite Lance's relentless pressure?

This isn't a question of whether it's possible or not. As long as he confronts Lance, it means he's declared war on the Federation, and the Federation will take him down directly.

He just... didn't want to lose power in this country, not that he wanted to die!
Hearing Lance's words, Vargas was taken aback for a moment, but quickly echoed, "I know how to tell him."

Not long after the phone call ended, there was a loud banging on Vargas's door.

He now lives in the Zhuolan Grand Hotel. He has sold his own house and other properties, since his family members have all gone to the Federation. There is no one else here except for himself.

Compared to the discomfort of living in his own house, staying in a hotel is clearly more suitable for his new identity—a federal investor.

It doesn't cost much money every day to enjoy the life of the elite. Why not enjoy such good conditions?

The knocking made his heart beat a little faster, but he still mustered his courage, walked to the door, and opened it.

The moment the door opened, a hand grabbed his collar, shoved him into the living room, and slammed him against the wall.

The butler slowly walked in from outside, his left hand gripping his right wrist, hanging down in front of him. "Who did you sell the mine to?"

(End of this chapter)