Documents / FOIA release
This FBI Freedom of Information release collects Albuquerque field office reports from July 1970 to May 1971 on Silas Mason Newton, the Buckhorn Mining Company and the Magnetic Research Foundation, which were investigated for interstate transportation of stolen property and confidence games. Agents suspected that Newton was running a salted mining swindle near Silver City, New Mexico, since assays found no mercury or silver in the ore. The file also lists his arrest record. The case was closed after a lender said he had not been swindled.
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He has, in the past, been acquainted with SILAS NEWTON who have been engaged in numerous mining ventures in the vicinity of Silver City and Grant County, New Mexico. He has seen recent publicity in the Silver City newspaper concerning a mine near Buckhorn reportedly operated by NEWTON and he has, in fact, had occasion to perform assay tests on samples of ore allegedly coming from the mine near Buckhorn as well as from a mine near Vanadium, New Mexico, also reportedly operated by NEWTON He said his tests on the ore proved that the ore was worthless and did not contain substantial amounts of silver or mercury as indicated in the publicity in the local press. He further commented that the publicity concerning the mine near Buckhorn, New Mexico, made mention of the possibility of mercury in this area, which he stated was practically impossible inasmuch as this area is located in an old lava flow where mercury would be unlikely to be found. stated that his office was to an office occupied by NEWTON and the partitions in the office were very thin and NEWTON being elderly, were somewhat hard of hearing and conversed in loud voice. He does recall hearing conversation through the partition at one time wherein somebody was being asked or told to go to El Paso and buy a quantity of mercury. He could conclude only that the purpose of the mercury was to be used to "salt" the mine either near Buckhorn or Vanadium, New Mexico, with the idea of convincing someone that the mine was, in fact, valuable for the purpose of obtaining mercury. continued that it has been rumored that an individual known as had advanced a substantial sum of money, something in the neighborhood of $50,000, to NEWTON ostensibly for development work on the Buckhorn mine. He could conclude only knowing NEWTON's background as 11/24/70 Silver City, New Mexico AQ 87-7861 8Aa
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FOIA release, from the fbi-vault collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. The text was read from the page images by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word. 28 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.