Armed Standoff Leads to Legal Battle in Peru

Vancouver — A metal gate manned by armed guards that has blocked access to mining claims held by two different juniors since June, has touched off a legal standoff in Peru.

The gate, placed by Grenville Gold (GVG-V), blocks a road that services claims belonging to both Grenville and High Ridge Resources (HRR-V).

One day in June, High Ridge workers showed up to find the locked gate and armed guards working for Grenville barring their way to the company’s two groups of claims in the San Mateo district, Huarochiri province.

High Ridge acquired two properties in San Mateo early this year. The larger group of claims, called the Rosicler-El Domo property, includes a relatively untouched 3-km-long exposed quartz vein system with an associated strongly altered volcanic dome. The smaller group of concessions, called the Pacococha-Germania property, hosts several epithermal vein systems that have been previously mined but never drilled. Both hold polymetallic, silver-bearing mineralization.

Grenville Gold also started acquiring property in the San Mateo district earlier this year. The two companies’ claims cover the district in a complex, interlocking pattern. In the areas around the four past-producing silver mines in San Mateo, the puzzle of claims involves parcels only a few hundred metres across.

In late August, Grenville claimed responsibility for the blockade, adding a paragraph onto a press release regarding blasting permits that explained the closure was “because loose rocks destroyed a portion of the road that led to properties over a high ridge. . . Access to the properties is impossible at this time.” In the release, the company said the road closure “in no way hampers Grenville’s current plans.”

Having been denied access to its properties for four months, High Ridge issued a press release in mid-October announcing that legal action was being taken against Grenville chairman Leonard De Melt and CEO Paul Gill over the road block, as well as three local employees of the company’s Peruvian subisidiary.

High Ridge president Gary Anderson says the road is a public one and therefore any blockade is illegal.

“Blocking a road is a felony in Peru,” he says. “It’s a public road, and both parties know that. What they’re disputing it on is for them to know. We just went through the legal system.”

Grenville, however, says it owns the surface rights covering the road. In a statement, the junior said that to access the private road, another company would have to negotiate with Grenville.

Anderson declined to elaborate on the legal action, described as the start of “criminal proceedings” in the High Ridge press release, but says he’s confident that High Ridge will come out on top in the dispute. While waiting for the legal system to begin proceedings against Grenville, High Ridge said it signed agreements with two of the four communities in the area securing unrestricted access to the land where they hold mineral claims.

Around the same time, Grenville bought almost 34 sq. km from one of the other local communities and said that the purchase gave them unrestricted access to their claims.

Grenville Gold management did not respond to requests for an interview, but in a press release said it owns the surface rights covering the road, and that it was blocked for safety reasons.