A common way for insiders to trade illegally in their own stock is to own it through offshore accounts. Preferably concealed through layers of ownership, ie trusts, anstalts, tax haven incorporated companies, etc.

I have read that the authorities can sometimes penetrate this tangle. Although it's difficult, they have the assistance of the huge government criminal investigators, including the tax investigators, in both the US and Canada, because international drug-dealing, arms-dealing, money laundering and terrorist funding operations are involved here. So a simple insider naiively thinking to trade his half-million shares invisibly from the cayman islands immediately sinks into a rich and toxic stew that can boil up over his head.

Nevertheless, I see this quite a bit. One company I've been following - don't hold now - announced very bad news early in july. Had been trading low volumes, in doldrums. However, the 2 preceding days before the news saw well over 1 millionl sh each day. On the day before the bad news, nearly all the selling was coming from one tiny brokerage based in Switzerland with a licensed arm in Canada. It was program selling - blasts of 500 shares every half-second for more than an hour.

By the following week sh price had dropped 60%. Now was that an insider leak or what. Will the authorities catch them. Probably never.

By contrast, we never see mysterious 1million sh trades in VIT coming from overseas.

Parties here have commented on Madrid's whisker-fine VIT trading tactics. I find myself thinking that Williams & Co have outlawed the offshore approach (see above) and have required that all insider trades be undisguised and declared.

Mr. Madrid's trades look smart. Those 200,000 sh he took out at .91 just 3 months ago look terrific right now. But they're all declared, they respect the rules, nothing is hidden. Anybody can look at what he's doing.

Me, I'm on the bus.

PS website: sedi.ca is the official depository for insider trading records.

PPS we don't have a national Canadian securities commission. At least not yet. Country has been trying for 20 years. Quebec and Alberta are opposed so efforts go nowhere. As result there is precious little enforcement in the true north. The IRROC is new name of the IDA, the investment dealer's association, so nobody hold their breath expecting them to police their own.

What little investigation there is, is carried out by the regulatory authorities of the TSX, now the TMX, and by the securities commissions of the individual provinces which are enfeebled by their small size and jurisdiction. Also the Mounties have a much-touted securities fraud division, the IMET, which has yet to capture any huge criminals but is currently collaborating with the far more powerful US SEC in exposing & stopping the illegal naked short traffic that has been driven north from the US to the lax rule-free climate of Canada. Appears this initiative is having some success & has turned up mob penetration of this shady corner.

Williams himself would know more about this than I do, he didn't spend more than 20 years in his previous career as a mining analyst/investment banker without hearing of this dark underbelly from time to time. That's why I believe he has deliberately chosen to make all VIT insider trading transparent and recorded. The difficult result, for the company, is that shareholders will not only scrutinize what they're doing but shareholders will also blab & gossip, like right here. The fact Williams wants to put the query plus his answer up on VIT's website shows that he wants to keep the story straight and open.