News Release

Released: 10/05/99 Contact: Michael Bernard
899-6500 or
(BC only) 1-800-373-6393

Vancouver -- A British Columbia Securities Commission panel has found EVC Resources Inc., and two of its promoters illegally distributed the company's securities in 1996 and 1997 without filing a prospectus or appropriate exemptions.

The panel, which will hear submissions before imposing sanctions, also found that the directors, Maurice John Calf and Kenneth Arthur Erickson and EVC made statements to investors regarding EVC that were untrue and misleading.

Erickson held himself out as the developer and owner of the 'Amtek process', a purportedly revolutionary new chemical based technology for extracting gold and other precious metals from so-called 'waste or complex ores'

In 1996, Calf and Erickson became involved in trying to develop commercially the Amtek process. EVC was incorporated by Calf to act as the financing vehicle for a joint venture with James Metallurgical Services Ltd., a company owned by Erickson. Funds invested with EVC were to be used by James Metallurgical to construct a pilot plant where the Amtek process would be used.

Investors were told that by subscribing to one of EVC's 'shares-plus-bullion' offers that they would get a certain amount of gold bullion and a proportionate number of EVC shares or an option to buy a proportionate number of EVC shares.

The gold bullion was to come from two main sources. The first source, which was to use the Amtek process, was a contract for mineral concentrates provided by Erickson. The second source concerned 'old gold' bullion which was purportedly plundered from countries occupied by Japanese soldiers and buried in the Philippine countryside at the end of the Second World War and from gold the late Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos had purportedly deposited in a New York bank.

No commercial amounts of gold had been processed or refined by EVC or James Metallurgical when police conducted a raid in July 1997. Similarly no 'old gold' bullion came to the pilot plant for refining and no gold bullion or EVC shares were ever delivered to EVC investors.

The panel said the two men made several misrepresentations to investors including:

· projected returns on an investment in EVC would be 150 per cent;
· an investment in EVC would be guaranteed with the delivery of gold;
· EVC would be taken public and listed on the Vancouver Stock Exchange or the Alberta Stock Exchange;
· EVC had the rights to the 'Amtek process', a proprietary method of extracting gold from mine tailings and 'complex ores'; and
· materials collected by EVC from properties under its control contained significant amounts of gold, which would be extracted by the Amtek process.

A copy of the decision can be found on the Commission's Web site www.bcsc.bc.ca or by contacting Communications Manager Michael Bernard.

The British Columbia Securities Commission is the independent provincial government agency responsible for regulating trading in securities and exchange contracts within the province.