There were things we didnt expect, things that normally wouldnt happen to us happened because the cameras were there, said Lomu. The dialogue is that of a B-rated actor and not free flowing as a Real conversation would be. Broke and demoralized, the three men abandoned their nascent mining operation in October 2010. Jungle Gold. When the captain took off the seatbelt sign, they roamed the cabin, high-fiving each other and cracking cans of beer. ET) give the term gold diggers a literal spin with this reality show, now in its second season. In April, Ensurge hired both men: Wright as vice president of public relations, Lomu as vice president of investor relations. We kind of shed a pretty big spotlight on the activities of illegal miners in Ghana. Additionally, Mr. Lomu has been appointed as Chairman of the Company . is that truth, are they gone? He was still there when I showed up six months later. We just wanted to show what its like in Guyana from our perspective, Wright said. If so, what do you think of those guys up in Alaska? Jungle Gold. ", "The stage is being set for a redemptive second season of Jungle Gold., Your weekday morning guide to breaking news, cultural analysis, and everything in between, This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google. Aboard a two-story mining dredge as it plies the brown waters of the Amazon jungle, he captures Guyanese miners laughing and telling jokes over lunch. Searching to find out more about George Wright? What do they think of this? As the coastline faded in the distance, Wright leaned across the aisle. This, like so many other pathetic reality shows should go away forever. Ref: http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1124.html these comments make me laugh, if show is that bad stop watching it. The show is such a fake with the pretend dangers all around them meanwhile the camera-production crew is right beside them every second with security and back-up, oooh Im so scared! According to Lomu, Raw later paid Akwesi $3,000 for his troubles. They just have to survive long enough to go back and tell the world, I guess. Lomu had heard that Americans could expect to buy gold in Ghana and resell it in the U.S. for a profit approaching 20%. Interview: Scott Lomu and George Wright of "Jungle Gold". Salary in 2020. He is from . The episode catalogued a series of ugly confrontations, including an illegal roadblock, the tense argument with tribal chiefs, and a risky back alley gold deal. ET) give the term "gold diggers" a literal spin with this reality show, now in its second season. That was hard, said Wright. In 2009, Macias was working as a private security contractor in Afghanistan, but hed grown tired of war zones. When I visited Aboagye in his cluttered office the following year, he told me hed requested a synopsis of the program the crew planned to make. Fearing another attack, the Jungle Gold cast and crew evacuated Fahiakobo and holed up in Raws Domenase compound 20 miles away. Board of Mining Advisors. Content Rating. Not to mention that the gold isn't all ours, what we pull out the local land owners and chiefs have a say in that and sadly, due to tradition and lack of education, people INSIST on using mercury. We hope it's a win-win. Share. 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. They watched as the title card flashed onscreen to the sounds of an explosion and a screeching howler monkey. The entire landscape of the mining industry over the last year has changed dramatically, and so we encountered a lot this season. It looked like their foray into mining was over until they stumbled across Discoverys Alaskan mining reality show, Gold Rush. As they prepared for shooting one day in May, they heard that armed militia had attacked miners near their old site. We are Scott Lomu & George Wright, We can't speak to other reality shows but are happy to share about ours and what it's been like. Etc. They were told by the Information Services Department that an arrest warrant had never officially been issued. According to government records, the Minerals Commissions district officer in Dunkwa had discovered Raw filming a mining site without its owners consent. Gold miners George Wright and Scott Lomu sit down with THR to talk about what their wives think of their adventures, whether they watch "Gold Rush" and what they have to say to people w They cast Wright and Lomu as hardworking family men engaged in a heroic struggle against hostile and uncooperative natives. But their new status as wanted men made riveting TV with little effort. Back at Discoverys headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, the channel was enduring its own crisis. Wright quickly ends the fight by locking the farmer in a chokehold, causing him to pass out. Now, Doyle gave its pilot a new mission: Extract the stars from Domenase and deliver them to Accra. We never used arsenic. But no such vehicles arrived. become affiliated with a public mining company. it was rated as one of the top programs on the Discovery Channel. The men expected to make easy money in Ghana. By this time, Ghanas mining industry was in chaos, with Al Jazeera reporting on the dangers of illegal mining, fuelled by widespread corruption. 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This was a good start. Reeling from the news, Lomu flew to Utah the next day. Now, as he scanned his iPhone, Wright saw that he and his co-star, Scott Lomu, were also facing government accusations of illegal gold mining. On the morning of May 9, hours before the first article ran, Wright was in Fahiakobo preparing for the days shoot when he received a disturbing call from Reece. And I think thats evidenced as anything by the things that Scott and I have been doing. Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. He was sawing into an overcooked hamburger patty when he glanced at the flatscreen on the wall. George Wright has been appointed as Vice President of Public Relations and Scott Lomu as Vice President of Investor Relations. When I visited Romaso months after Wright and Lomu fled, a cocoa farmer whod witnessed the fight told me it had been painful to watch. George Wright and Scott Lomu, former real estate investors that lost everything in the 2008 crash, make the life-altering decision to travel to Ghana in West Africa to hunt for gold. We Villagers routinely set up roadblocks and demanded hundreds of dollars to pass. The next morning, Wright searched his iPhone for news of the incident. Haha! Scott: Things have been getting pretty tense in Ghana because our show has shed a lot of light on a lot of illegal mining activity happening in Ghana. The show, the first article said, captured horrifying scenes of foreigners taking over mining sites and killing indigenes. In the second, Fuseini promised to track down and arrest the two Americans. We were in panic mode. Wright found work translating Spanish for an Arizona-based equipment supplier bidding for contracts in Colombias mining sector. They toiled for 18 hours a day, travelling two hours from a nearby village to the mine, living in a mud hut and battling with storms, broken equipment and constant delays. The Chinese miners remained on the site, and Lomu forfeited the money he paid for it. We also discussed the fact that they initially started out with another partner who committed suicide just one day before they got the call from Discovery. Wright and Lomu have a plan for a new reality show, about mining and selling gold and their home lives. Follows Americans George Wright and Scott Lomu, two hard working men who risk it all to strike it rich as part of a golden plan to recover from losing everything in the real estate crash of 2008. We have estimated George Wright's net worth, money, salary, income, and assets. The crew had received press accreditation from the Information Services Department, he said. Invigorated by this new prospect, the three men invested in a small-scale operation near the mining town of Obuasi, a four-hour drive from Accra, and took turns traveling to Ghana over the next three months. Since Jungle Gold aired, small mining companies from around the world have contacted Wright and Lomu through Facebook to propose mining partnerships. The Guyana operation was expanding, and Mishleau valued Wright and Lomus years of mining experience in Ghana. Jungle Gold an action-packed reality show about two Mormons from Utah mining for gold in Ghana was a hit when it premiered on the Discovery Channel in 2012. Since small-scale mining is reserved for Ghanaians, he assumed the Americans were mining illegally. Class acts the two of them. At the time, Wright and Lomu brawny, clean-living Mormons from Utah were in the midst of shooting Jungle Golds second season. It was another disaster. Lomu and Macias had been best friends growing up; as a teenager, Lomu had baptized him into the Mormon church. The two Americans will be tracked down and arrested, a Ghanaian official declared. Scott and I know we could have done better. But none of them seemed Messrs Lomu and Wright starred in the popular television show Jungle Macias took his own life, and the wheels were set in motion for their star-crossed show. You were a bad realtor, a dreamer, no clue about mining, engineering, equipment operation, management, or investment. Within one season, they were being accused of racism, exploitation, destroying the environment and even murder. Edit 2: It's September 18th 2013, I just went through and caught up with most of the questions here. Take a good look, Scottie, he said. I'm honestly not a fan of Reality tv at all, I want to watch good scripted shows with compelling stories. Afterward, the farmer said, people viewed them more cautiously. S: George is a little wordy, here's the short answer. Did Ghana ever try to arrest you two as indicated in this article on Ghana Web? (Raw declined to comment on the incident.) Life saving hugs or to provide tissues for his whiny wife? His own face stared back. Anytime somebody felt we were taking advantage of them, even this idea of colonialism was so off our radar, it felt so out of left field.. That would be exporting it, as Wright and Lomu have to mine through such obstacles as armed locals and illegal miners . So now I'm just leaving this thing open . By paying for excavators and local laborers, foreign investors could split the gold profits with the companys owner. Still, the acceptance of Mormonism in Ghana today belies a troubled history. Spoiler Alert, yeah, can't answer that, we were there for 4 months about. 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. It was January 2011, and Lomu had stumbled onto the first season of Gold Rush, a Discovery Channel reality show that follows three men from Oregon as they mine for gold in Alaska. We were like, This is the kind of operation we want to be a part of! Lomu said. Couldnt agree with Dru Kelly more. Ghanas National Security Agency, meanwhile, had yet to contact them. As he later told Wright, All it takes is a handful of guys with firearms to see the show and come looking for us.. On the night of Nov. 13, Lomu was returning alone from their mining site when he got a phone call from Maciass wife. In a 2013 Reddit AMA, several commenters asked Wright and Lomu whether the scene was scripted. But we were willing to wear our heart on our sleeve.. The stage is being set for a redemptive second season of Jungle Gold, they wrote. George: Theres something to be said about gold fever about realizing that I dig a hole, I find gold. Why moan about something just find something else to watch. His first radio story, which cast doubt on the Americans legal status, aired the first week of May. According to Lomu, Raw had replied that Discovery could not pull the show from Ghana without pulling it from DStv altogether. The little gold they found went directly into equipment costs. He returned with bad news: The license would not be ready for another six weeks. In April 2015, they were hired by Utah-based mining company Ensurge to share their mining expertise in Guyana and help attract investors. But the optimistic, God-fearing pair are now back in the game, trying their hand at mining in Guyana, on South Americas Caribbean coast, posting hair-raising videos on Instagram. Jungle Gold. As a nationwide manhunt ensued, Discovery ordered Wright, Lomu, and the shows 20-person British film crew to evacuate Domenase and head to the airport in the capital city of Accra. We met that guy a few weeks back. Clint Mishleau, the Companys CEO, stated, We are very pleased to have In exchange, he asked Wright and Lomu to put up $50,000. Scott receives life-changing news that could change their gold mining futures. The path to George Wright and Scott Lomu's camp. The only money these guys will ever have is the money they get from the producer who pays them at least $20-30,000 per episode. This is a tale of our times the new American Dream set in the jungles of Africa, the introduction read. The program reports on currently classified intelligence seized during the May 2, 2011, raid on bin Ladens compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan (pictured above the day after the raid), and is narrated by NBC News correspondent Harry Smith. 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. Viewers claimed the show was racist, portrayed locals in outdated colonial stereotypes, and exploited impoverished Ghanians for money and ratings. By August 2012, more than two months into the shoot, the stars joint venture had found only a few ounces of gold. It is really pathetic. Alan Tay, Wright and Lomus handyman, was doing something similar. Discovery moved the show from Friday to Sunday nights, where it competed with NFL football for the eyes of American men, their primary demographic. tailings, improve recoveries of existing milling operations and improve We saw mining as an opportunity and used our cash to purchase some equipment. Six months later, in May 2012, Wright and Lomu met with the Raw crew inside an opulent conference room at the Golden Tulip hotel in Accra to discuss the projected arc of Season 1. But it was Lomus identical twin brother, Bill, a divorce mediator then living in Arizona, who finally took action. I think it would shock a lot of people to hear how encouraging they are, and how supportive they are. (The news site had failed to provide attribution for the murder accusation.). Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts, https://twitter.com/JungleGeorgeVI/status/365907125215576064, https://twitter.com/JungleGoldScott/status/365907460332068864, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFDu1cQjqGaj-3wBYavW1Hg/videos, http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=273569, http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/jungle-gold/videos/run-for-the-border-part-one.htm, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fS7g-l3-M5k. It brought back a lot of stressful memories, Wright said. (It has since been clarified in the wake of Jungle Gold.) Coincidentally, Discovery had recently reserved a Russian helicopter to take aerial shots of Wright and Lomus new excavator as it trundled into Fahiakobo. That drippy wife should stop whining and deal with it while her husband a finally does a days work. Discovery was so impressed by the clips they upped the season from 10 episodes to 16. We were like, well show them the failures, the terrible, horrible stuff. I have never seen the show. George Wright have accepted positions as members of the Companys November 23, 2012. They whine at how poor they are, yet no wife works (the husbands hardly do either) they live in big mansions, drive fancy cars? Can you talk about your new colleague Dave Thomas? That night, Wright and Lomu rendezvoused with the crew at the Golden Tulip, where everything began. I don't watch the show, but I'm curious if it makes an attempt to discuss the environmental impacts (bulldozing forests, polluting water with mercury and arsenic, etc.) I feel like its actually underappreciated and underdemonstrated in any medium. But where? New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. Watching the videos, I got the sense that Wright and Lomu, regretful over Jungle Gold, were trying to redeem themselves by portraying Guyana in a flattering light. Wrights wife, Marie, sat in amazement as her unflappably nice Mormon husband imitated Rambo: shouting orders, grimacing at the camera, and heaving logs out of the road, his every flippin' and shoot bleeped out to create a bawdier impression. They explain better he is a broker. Do you guys take any measures to minimize your impact? He earned the money being a professional American Football Player. $1 Million - $5 Million. When Lomu proposed gold dealing in Ghana, Macias needed no convincing. Lomu and Wright promised to show people more respect and understanding. Around 2.75 million viewers tuned in, making it the fourth most popular primetime cable show that Friday night. How is the discovery of Autism an emergency? When he and other commission officials watched clips of the show online, they were appalled by its depiction of Ghana. (Raw refused to comment on Aboagyes claim.) I have never seen this dude, Marie remembers thinking. [], On May 1 one day before the first anniversary of Operation Neptune Spear, the special operations mission that led to the killing of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden Discovery Channel will premiere the one-hour special Secrets of Bin Ladens Lair. And yet they also felt a strange sense of calm. They got through it by dreaming up episodes for their nonexistent reality show. A rosy conclusion to Season 1 looked unlikely. Then the Joy News team got ahold of Inusah Fuseini, Ghanas minister of lands and natural resources. Contribute to changjiangsx/sbm development by creating an account on GitHub. But they soon discovered a more viable option: gold mining. Channel. 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