PROVIDENCE –– They hunted down salesmen hanging onto samples, dunned customers with unpaid bills and sold large stockpiles of gold and silver.

In two auctions, they sold off inventory, equipment, machines and copyrights.

But in the end, the dismantling of the The Colibri Group, the famed East Providence jewelry maker, did not bring in enough cash to pay back the banks that had loaned the company $23 million.

That means its former employees, who have been battling for compensation since January, have little chance of being paid.

“This is a bankruptcy hearing that really puts the workers in last place,” said Greg Pehrson, director of Fuerza Laboral, a labor-rights group in Central Falls that has helped organize the former Colibri employees.

Allan M. Shine, the company’s court-appointed receiver, filed an 11-page report Thursday describing the events that followed Colibri’s sudden closure on Jan. 15.

But for former workers and suppliers, the bottom line was typed at the bottom of a related court filing. “It appears unlikely,” Shine wrote, “that there will be any funds available for payments to vendors, other general, unsecured creditors, former employees or any other creditors.”

It was not for lack of trying. Shine’s report details efforts to collect $6 million in unpaid bills; $1.4 million in jewelry and watches held by salesmen; and $2 million in products shipped to shopkeepers and other customers but never purchased.

A March 19 auction attracted 76 bidders, whose purchases brought in $8.9 million. On April 16, the sale of machines and equipment came up with an additional $409,000.

At the end, however, millions of dollars HSBC and Sovereign loaned Colibri will not be repaid.

Shine’s report did not come as a surprise.

Throughout the receivership, the former 280 employees have been asking to leap ahead of the so-called secured lenders in the queue, anticipating that no money would be left once the banks get their share.

In February, hundreds of workers protested outside the company’s former headquarters, demanding the 60 days of pay and two months of health-care coverage they say they are entitled to under a federal plant-closings law.

The next month, 14 former workers were arrested while trying to disrupt the auction of Colibri’s property.

Demonstrations were also held outside Shine’s office; at the New York City headquarters of Colibri’s former owners, Founders Equity; and at the Westchester County home of one the firm’s executives.

At hearings in Providence, former workers have packed Superior Court Judge Michael A. Silverstein’s courtroom.

“The workers,” Shine wrote in his report, “were surprised, stunned and angry at being laid off after many had worked from 10 to 30 years or more for The Colibri Group.”

bgedan@projo.com