The current MISM promotion, if not an outright scam, is a very similar scenario to Sky Scientific, which also used a bogus and outrageous valuation on its preferred stock exchanged for a worthless mining property to claim a massive valuation on its balance sheet. Here is some interesting reading on the Sky scam from the SEC. It was a very important case, and is still often cited by the SEC in other cases.

http://www.sec.gov/litigation/aljdec/id137rgm.htm

http://www.sec.gov/litigation/aljdec/id183jtk.htm

Sky Scientific is also a textbook case regarding fraud based on an inflated valuation for its preferred stock. I know it is used as an example in many accounting courses (many recent CPA's will likely recognize the case from their coursework), and was covered in a recent (2009) accounting education journal study, among others.

http://www.accountingeducation.com/index.cfm?...;id=149758