scott lomu and george wright now
All were shocked to think Americans would film themselves engaging in illegal mining, let alone broadcast it. Fortune seekers George Wright and Scott Lomu know there are no rewards without risks, but even the gold-mining stars of "Jungle Gold" weren't prepared for the danger they and the show's crew faced . By this time, Ghanas mining industry was in chaos, with Al Jazeera reporting on the dangers of illegal mining, fuelled by widespread corruption. Keep 'em coming if you have them. Fri 1 Jul 2022 13.18 EDT. In Jungle Gold, Discovery Channel's hit reality series, George Wright and Scott Lomu try their best to climb out of a mountain of debt.Their loyal families wait at home while the two toil away in Ghana, hoping to strike gold and solidify their financial futures. Oh my word, they think I killed him, he said. George Wright. G: Good question, for us this was nothing more than the right opportunity at the right time. Because it really is a joke how nave and unprepared these douche bags really are. Lomu signaled for the check. Watch my interview with the guys and a clip from the episode: Watch: George and Scott of Jungle Gold talk robbery, accusations, GloRilla, Ice Spice, And The Carefree Black Girl Backlash, Karol G Tells Us About Her Most Personal Album Yet, Maana Ser Bonito, And Collaborating With Shakira, The Rundown: Between Cocaine Bears And Maple Syrup Heists, Margo Martindale Is Absolutely Thriving In 2023. Under Review. in exploring and developing gold mining opportunities in South and North So Literally Ask US Anything, we can't spoil the upcoming season, but anything else is fine. He earned the money being a professional American Football Player. George: We met him towards the end of our last little stint out there. Press J to jump to the feed. He was standing on his bed in boxer briefs as his wife lay beside him and laughed. Jungle Gold is back, having started Season 2 on Aug. 11 (now . We asked! Its still higher than when we originally went to West Africa to find it. Then the Joy News team got ahold of Inusah Fuseini, Ghanas minister of lands and natural resources. On Oct. 15, 2012, more than two months after the meeting, the synopsis arrived. Both men had worked in Utah's real estate market, had young families to support and debts piling up. The company owned a large mining operation in Guyana, a former British colony on the Caribbean coast of South America. Prior to the fight, locals had regarded the cast and crew with friendly curiosity. These two are typical failed realtors who have entitlement issues just like the rest of the yuppies of their generation. Former real estate high-rollers George and Scott regularly turned over million dollar deals. Interview from the Chicago Resource Expo with George Wright & Scott Lomu from Discovery Channles hit show Jungle Gold Sitting on the compounds couch, Wright watched in shock as the clip of him choking the cocoa farmer aired on national television. We encountered a lot of stuff thats never been shown on TV. Meanwhile, the pressure is on the boys to secure a wood-burning stove so the family can stay warm over winter. It could be a painful reality but that's the way it is. Unfortunately, most locals can't afford to mine the gold, they need outside investment. It was another disaster. Fearing another attack, the Jungle Gold cast and crew evacuated Fahiakobo and holed up in Raws Domenase compound 20 miles away. But that doesnt tell the full story. George: When we first originally went to Africa gold was actually lower than it is today, even though its taken a hit over this last year. Discovery had ordered 12 episodes, Wright said, but their abbreviated stay produced only enough material for six. Most assumed they were mining illegally. But the incident changed the dynamic in the village. And one of their original crew had taken his own life. Maybe Utah poor is different to my poor. It brought back a lot of stressful memories, Wright said. The next day, Joy FM dispatched its Kumasi correspondent, Erastus Asare Donkor, to gather reactions to the story in the citys streets and markets. Weve always felt like maybe we need to have the production company subtitle him with truth. Bottom line, hes surprised us in a lot of good ways, and hes surprised us in a lot of bad ways, as youll see in the season to come. Since Jungle Gold aired, small mining companies from around the world have contacted Wright and Lomu through Facebook to propose mining partnerships. For anyone who thinks their decision to pursue gold mining is utterly insane, they explained to me how they came to this conclusion in a way that sounds entirely logical. Only the most coldhearted, inhumane person could spend more than an hour in Ghana and think to do that.. Edit: added second related question. George: Theres something to be said about gold fever about realizing that I dig a hole, I find gold. Take a good look, Scottie, he said. Youre doing this all for your families. One of them was Wright, whose entrepreneurial drive and years in South America Lomu saw as an asset. In 2009, when Lomus father-in-law, a wealthy lawyer in Salt Lake City, suggested Lomu try dealing gold in Ghana, he latched onto the idea. When I asked a 21-year-old local named Nana Jyamfi what he did for a living, he laughed: Im waiting for the Chinese to come back.. That night, Wright and Lomu rendezvoused with the crew at the Golden Tulip, where everything began. He was crushed to learn I was not. One op-ed, titled Jungle Gold: A Case Study in the Exploitation of Africa, captured the collective indignation that greeted the series. Scott Lomu and George Wright, hapless heroes of Discoverys Jungle Gold, finally had to flee the country by plane to escape arrest and the armed militia who seemed to be pursuing them. You would make a good politician though, you could go cry with Speaker of the House John Boehner about how tough it is to support your trophy wife. Theres a lot of hostility we ran into this year; quite a few from locals, from other miners, and, unfortunately, from higher authorities, and well just leave it at that. Scott receives life-changing news that could change their gold mining futures. And though Mormons make up less than a quarter of 1% of Ghanas 25 million people, they hold a strong symbolic presence in the country. That November, Bill emailed the treatment to a handful of production companies, including Raw TV, the British company that produces Gold Rush. Just goes to show how really gullible Hollywood thinks the viewing public is. Lomu and Wright didnt head to Africa with dreams of reality TV stardom, and it seems having a camera crew around when youre trying to work is more of a pain than anything else. BLOCK! Near the bottom, he noticed a message from his brother Bill. Olivia Newton-Johns daughter has revealed how she keeps her connection to her mother alive months after her tragic passing. Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. Maybe little Scottie will have a headache or a hang nail as his next excuse for constant failure. A task force created by President John Mahama had flushed dozens of Chinese miners from the area, leaving many of the villages men unemployed. So, gold fever its addictive. I have never seen this dude, Marie remembers thinking. The reality stars of Jungle Gold on the Discovery Channel (DStv 121) face fines, arrest and even possible imprisonment over charges of alleged brutality and illegal mining in Ghana, with the Ghanaian government which now wants to see Scott Lomu and George Wright apprehended and arrested. Their timing was perfect. With prices at an all-time high, Ghana has become a hotzone for . (Raw declined to comment on the incident.) In the show Dave Thomas is portrayed as a major landowner/prospector in Ghana. Wright, 32, a mixed martial arts enthusiast with long blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, grew up in California before moving to Utah at 16. In June, they produced a series of short videos to show prospective investors. Taxis that once passed every 10 minutes, shuttling miners to work, now came a few times per day. They stop mining, protecting the environment and local communities. George Wright and Scott Lomu of Discovery's "Jungle Gold" (Sundays at 10:00 p.m. But they only had $35,000 left. The Mormon miners submitted a proposal to Raw TV, the British company that produced the program, and waited. Mensah was a reporter for Joy FM, one of Ghanas most popular news radio stations. In April 2015, they were hired by Utah-based mining company Ensurge to share their mining expertise in Guyana and help attract investors. Theyre hoping things will be different this time. First, their new landowner revealed the mining licence wasnt ready, so they couldnt film any actual work. Discovery moved the show from Friday to Sunday nights, where it competed with NFL football for the eyes of American men, their primary demographic. There were reports of armed robberies in Chinese mining camps as locals and foreign rivals fought for land. The stars solved the dilemma by essentially pretending to mine, digging in the mud or washing gold by hand when a scene called for it. In April, Ensurge hired both men: Wright as vice president of public relations, Lomu as vice president of investor relations. The California gold rush of the mid19th century coincided with the Mormon pioneers arrival in Utah. If you cannot answer that for Spoiler reasons, how many months were you in Ghana for, this year? Board of Mining Advisors. Lomu couldnt believe what he was seeing. Lomu responded by saying the things that happen on the show are 100% real, though he allowed that it's a tv show and things will get overly dramatized. But the robbery, which cut the season short at Episode 7, offered a convenient end to a story that was spiraling out of its creators control. tailings, improve recoveries of existing milling operations and improve S: That's a great question, we get it a lot. When Lomu proposed gold dealing in Ghana, Macias needed no convincing. We saw mining as an opportunity and used our cash to purchase some equipment. A lot of Latter-day Saints did go mining, said David Walker, assistant professor of religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Now Wright and Lomu are the stars When the market fails where do you go? Tay, who at 53 resembles an older version of the actor Idris Elba, grew up in Accra before embarking on a mining career in his thirties. The other was Wally Macias, a charismatic Mexican-American and former undercover narcotics agent in Kanab, Utah. This was met with disappointment in the first 5 days of our trip to Africa because it's not even CLOSE to easy to get cheap gold in Africa, they know the price of Gold better than anybody! A decade later, Mormonisms rapid growth and displays of wealth led the Ghanaian government to ban all Mormon activities, suspecting the church was a front for the CIA. For instance, the men boasted of paying farmers 10 times their annual wages to mine on their farmland. Find out more about our policy and your choices, including how to opt-out. Gold, which ran two seasons on the Discovery Channel. Discovery Channel. Even way back then we kind of had a number saying, Okay, what happens if it goes this low, are we still good? Its still a viable business, and we believe it still will be for many years to come. If you havent seen the show, its a doozie. Lomu peeked out the compounds window, half expecting a military convoy to break down the gate and haul them away. But their return to Ghana was to be even more troubled than round one. $1 Million - $5 Million. Villagers routinely set up roadblocks and demanded hundreds of dollars to pass. We partner with mines to digitize their precious elements. While the landowner applied for a large-scale license, Raw had paid dozens of local men 40 cedis per day (around $20 in 2013, more than twice the standard rate) to dig 8-foot holes in search of gold deposits, a process known as prospecting. (A spokesperson for Raw would not comment on whether the farmer was paid.) Alerted to the situation by Raw, series producer Christo Doyle set up a "war room" as the cameras rolled. Scott and George test out a brand new claim after racking up huge debts on the Romaso gold mine. it was rated as one of the top programs on the Discovery Channel. After averaging 2.65 million viewers a week during its first season on Discovery Channel last fall, Jungle Gold is back, having started Season 2 on Aug. 11 (now airing on Sundays). We never used arsenic. But Alan Reece, a Guyanese mining foreman the men had befriended, discovered a promising alternative in the nearby village of Fahiakobo, a hilltop settlement of around 30 mud huts flanking a red dirt road. The camera catches a masked African man dashing into the jungle, a submachine gun in one hand and Lomus gold bar in the other. The crew had received press accreditation from the Information Services Department, he said. 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