Filming at home. It was terrifying, it was really scary, Wright admitted. For fun (I didnt want anything out of it, Bill told me), he learned the format for reality show treatments from a producer friend in Los Angeles. He went to a meeting but he'll be back I'm sure. In exchange, he asked Wright and Lomu to put up $50,000. Gold miners George Wright and Scott Lomu sit down with THR to talk about the mistakes they tried not to repeat and why they keep returning to Ghana despite the life-or-death stakes. The Friday audience is a different audience. But none of them seemed The Minerals Commission claimed the crew had pushed ahead without adequate permissions and secretly asked the countrys National Security Agency to investigate them, fearing a stampede of greedy foreign miners, according to Buzzfeed. As methodical and reserved as Wright is impulsive and outspoken, Lomu, eight years Wrights senior, was raised outside Phoenix. 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. Really angry that certain things would happen here on our soil. Many thought the stars had killed a man a rumor based on a YouTube clip of Wright choking out the cocoa farmer. A couple of years ago, Utah Valley residents Scott Lomu, 37, and George Wright, 29, decided to investigate after Lomu's father-in-law, who had explored the booming Ghanaian gold market himself . Steve Wright is to leave his BBC Radio 2 weekday show after almost 24 years, after the station's boss told him she wants to . Phone calls from furious Ghanaian expatriates poured in. BLOCK! This is a tale of our times the new American Dream set in the jungles of Africa, the introduction read. He found instead the two articles in My Joy Online ordering his arrest and accusing him of killing people. The holes revealed a high concentration of gold in the ground. Weve learned the people of Ghana and weve always known this are great, humble people.. They amassed large portfolios of raw land and residential properties throughout Utah. Nationwide News Pty Ltd 2023. We have a full Biography, Photos, Theatre Credits, and more! To ensure the most secure and best overall experience on our website, we recommend the latest versions of. It could be a painful reality but that's the way it is. You were a bad realtor, a dreamer, no clue about mining, engineering, equipment operation, management, or investment. Fearing another attack, the Jungle Gold cast and crew evacuated Fahiakobo and holed up in Raws Domenase compound 20 miles away. Then, in December 2014, they met Clint Mishleau. 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. So they turn to other means. By then, they each had two kids and houses in the suburbs. We didnt think it would make us look cool and it certainly didnt.. Onscreen, an overweight guy with a wizardly goatee was struggling to fix the motor of an excavator. The entire landscape of the mining industry over the last year has changed dramatically, and so we encountered a lot this season. The Lomu brothers then drew up a three-page final draft outlining the premise and sample episodes, in which three American entrepreneurs in dire financial straits would grapple with Ghanaian tribal chiefs, gold robbers, rival miners and each other. I feel that resonates with people on a pretty personal level. This season, Scott and George have family money on the line in the form of an investment from Scotts father-in-law and a new colleague, Dave Thomas, as they had back to Ghana looking for enough gold to pay off the debts and secure their families futures. S: Well, I hope that all the miners that were there illegally are gone. They hired a former special services agent to beef up security and instituted a no-mercury policy, barring laborers from handling the toxic liquid. Last year we were forced to use mercury which was really hard for a lot of people. 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. He also began investing in real estate, which was how he met Scott Lomu. Once we did, we got back in touch with him and he had land available still, and from there it was just kind of the beginning of Im not going to say a beautiful relationship, because Im not a huge fan of Dave. Public Relations and Scott Lomu as Vice President of Investor Relations. I can say that Parker is a cool kid, he's been supportive to us and so has Fred. But, you will find Ghana a fantastic country. He was standing on his bed in boxer briefs as his wife lay beside him and laughed. I talked with Scott and George by phone recently about Jungle Gold, a few days after the Season 2 premiere. And one of their original crew had taken his own life. They say theyve learnt from their catastrophic, ratings-winning sojourn in West Africa. But Wright doesnt regret fighting back. The new operation went as poorly as the first. Contribute to changjiangsx/sbm development by creating an account on GitHub. Back in Ghana, things were no better. When the United States Navy SEALs killed bin Laden during the operation, they captured a prize far greater and more valuable [], Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window), Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), on Discovery announces limited-run Gold Rush spinoff series, on Discovery special presents details on classified bin Laden intel, http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1124.html, Discovery announces limited-run Gold Rush spinoff series, Discovery Channels Alaskan Bush People recap: A Wolfpack Divided, Discovery special presents details on classified bin Laden intel, Single Ladies Decide if Country Livin is for Them in Farmer Wants a Wife. Did Ghana ever try to arrest you two as indicated in this article on Ghana Web? How does it feel to go to the poorest continent on the planet with the goal to take as much of the little wealth they have left? Consumed with other business, hed all but forgotten about Raw. But they trust us enough to know that there are certain lines that we wont cross and that we have, believe it or not, enough common sense to stay alive. The Mormons stuck to soda. He is from the United States. Alan Tay, Wright and Lomus handyman, was doing something similar. Those guys on the dredge they were having a really good time. He paused. There was also an image problem. He and his friend George Wright had gone to Ghana the previous summer to mine gold, and what he was watching on TV was ho-hum compared to the most uneventful day in Ghana. The kids autism is just another excuse for the idiot to stop working and run home. What the freak is this? Lomu shouted. Akwesi was preparing to harvest his crops when the crew leveled them, he said. A talk with George Wright and Scott Lomu about "Jungle Gold" Season 2, the move to a new night and the reality of "gold fever." . He earned the money being a professional American Football Player. Theyre hoping things will be different this time. Theres a lot of feedback we get where people are just really inspired by the idea that we have a goal and were willing to do whatever it takes to obtain that goal. But Raw believed they could meet the challenges of filming a gold-mining operation in Ghana; in the Season 1 synopsis, they noted that their contributors would be paragons of responsible mining. Discovery, which had green-lit the show in March, had insisted Wright and Lomu hire locals, replant cocoa crops on mined land, and abide by the rules of Ghanas Environmental Protection Agency. It described how miners were regularly killed or injured thanks to unsafe practices, with 150 dying when one unlicensed mine flooded, and how cyanide, lead and mercury, used to extract gold then dumped in rivers poisoned communities. Wright and Lomu had never imagined they would end up mining for gold in Ghana. 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. Broke and demoralized, the three men abandoned their nascent mining operation in October 2010. But like gold miners throughout history, a mixture of delusion, pioneering instinct, and financial desperation drove them to it. Mishleau, a fourth-generation gold miner from Wisconsin, had recently been named CEO of Ensurge, Inc., a publicly traded Utah-based holding company that invests in gold mines in the Americas. *Discovery Channel has been pushing this as a new season, though the May 29 new episode is listed as Season 2, Episode 9. Etc. Despite the possibility of work in Accra, hed stayed in Fahiakobo after the cast and crew fled, guarding the stars tent and praying for their return. But they had not received permission from the Minerals Commission to film mining lands. There were more tweets during our reruns that Sunday [during a Season 1 marathon] than we got all of last year. G: Good question, for us this was nothing more than the right opportunity at the right time. Jungle Gold. These two are typical failed realtors who have entitlement issues just like the rest of the yuppies of their generation. But they soon discovered a more viable option: gold mining. I was astonished, Mensah said months later. On Oct. 26, 2012, the night of the U.S. premiere, Wrights extended family gathered around the TV in his living room in Eagle Mountain, Utah, a predominantly Mormon town an hour outside Salt Lake City. Clean-cut Lomu and Wright were working together in Utahs declining real estate industry when they heard Ghana was experiencing a modern-day gold rush and attracting overseas miners, mainly Chinese, to try their luck. Who gave you permission to work here? Akwesi demands, before tackling the crews Ghanaian security guard. When the cast and crew arrived on the first day of filming, however, they found it crawling with Chinese miners. Todd Hoffman, Tony Beets, and Parker Schnabel in Gold Rush. Lomu and Macias had been best friends growing up; as a teenager, Lomu had baptized him into the Mormon church. So Literally Ask US Anything, we can't spoil the upcoming season, but anything else is fine. Soon we will be creating games and NFTs based on real elements. 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. Email. That summer, the men resumed their former routine, traveling to Ghana in shifts. You were slightly mislead. Ghanas National Security Agency, meanwhile, had yet to contact them. By August 2012, more than two months into the shoot, the stars joint venture had found only a few ounces of gold. In the most cases they also have children. George: I think this all would have ended a long time ago had our wives and our children, and even extended family and close friends, not been so supportive. We How could I not show that?. They whine at how poor they are, yet no wife works (the husbands hardly do either) they live in big mansions, drive fancy cars? When Lomu suggested removing the miners by force, a chief replied: If you attempt it, they will kill you! The crew captured everything on film and loved it. There are plenty of other channels. When Doyle learned the arrest warrant had been extended to the crew, he called for an immediate evacuation. FYI, for our show specifically, it is 200 hours of content for 43 minutes if show. We split the gold with the locals, & they of themselves dnt [sic] have the machines to get to the gold, Wright wrote to one skeptical American viewer on Twitter who had suggested they mine in the U.S. instead, before softening her opinion. But it was Lomus identical twin brother, Bill, a divorce mediator then living in Arizona, who finally took action. I mean, not logical enough to actually do it, but they clearly considered the idea (and had a relative in the field) before diving in. In Ghana, non-Ghanaians are allowed to mine on plots of more than 25 acres, known as large-scale concessions. Maybe Utah poor is different to my poor. A lot of questions have been asked in Ghana about how, and why so many illegal miners were allowed to mine in Ghana without paperwork for so long. In April 2013, it premiered on Ghanaian TV. 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But many viewers of Jungle Gold thought exploiting Ghanaians was precisely what Wright and Lomu had done. 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. We split the gold with the village, the farmers make a ton of money from us, we employ many, many locals, paying them 10X what they would normally make, we pay taxes, and contribute a ton to the local economy. Season 2 of Jungle Gold airs Sundays at 10pm ET/PT on Discovery Channel. Its a sad story, but their determination to continue in Wallys honor is one you have to hear. Villagers set up roadblocks and demanded hundreds of dollars. 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. Season 1 Ep 11. In the May 29 midseason* premiere of Discovery Channels Alaskan Bush People, A Wolfpack Divided, the Brown family is ready to move into their new home when Ami requires immediate medical attention and must travel to a big city for surgery. Missionaries first arrived in Ghana in the 15th century, but the Mormon church was not established in West Africa until 1978, when it reversed a long-standing policy barring black men from the priesthood. Worst of all, popular radio station Joy FM claimed Wright had killed the man he was filmed choking. By the time the season ended, three Change.org petitions had called for the shows cancellation, drawing a total of 3,000 supporters from the U.S., Europe, South America, Australia, and across West Africa. They stop mining, protecting the environment and local communities. They hadnt actually killed anyone, after all, and they were not mining illegally. Lomu and Macias worked construction for a Mormon homebuilder in Utah. But what you do with that really defines who you are.. 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. We encountered a lot of stuff thats never been shown on TV. The site itself was a wide clearing in the jungle scarred by gaping 20-foot pits, where Ghanaian laborers wrangled the equipment in pools of coffee-colored mud. Now Wright and Lomu are the stars When the market fails where do you go? No way. We say, Yeah, we travel back and forth between here and West Africa. And then they always said the same thing which I felt there needed to be some deciphering after theyd say it theyd always say, I wish I could do that. And I said, Well, I dont think you understand what youre saying. November 23, 2012. Language. Discovery had ordered 12 episodes, Wright said, but their abbreviated stay produced only enough material for six. To guarantee cell service in the bush, the company bought Raw a 30-foot antenna. Back in 2009, Scott Lomu and George Wright, two clean living Mormons, were trying to find a way to make money after suffering huge losses when the housing bubble popped the year before. 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.) They had brought in work and money after all. 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. In 2011, an undercover video published by Al Jazeera revealed Ghanaian children as young as 14 working in Chinese-run mining pits. Salary in 2020. They feared it would provoke a stampede of greedy foreign gold miners, exacerbating the small-scale mining crisis. 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! ", "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. We came to realize this was a perfect opportunity to show how foreigners can do business the right way in Ghana, Lomu told me. Reeling from the news, Lomu flew to Utah the next day. After a month of waiting, Alan Reece, the mining foreman, contacted the landowner for an update on his application. Whose the stupid ones ? 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! When Lomu proposed gold dealing in Ghana, Macias needed no convincing. Then the Joy Midday News came on TV. 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. Near the bottom, he noticed a message from his brother Bill. How, in less than a year, did its cast and crew get accused of everything from manipulating Ghanaians to murdering them? He had no idea George is an experienced MMA fighter, the shows gravel-voiced narrators says. Clint Mishleau, the Companys CEO, stated, We are very pleased to have Big props to the crew if they really risked themselves like that to get the footage. Interview from the Chicago Resource Expo with George Wright & Scott Lomu from Discovery Channles hit show Jungle Gold The chief warned that if they fought the miners, they would be killed. 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. On the morning of May 11, the cast and crew arrived at Kotoka International Airport. Viewers were shocked that Americans would broadcast illegal mining, and activists claimed throwing money at people unused to financial decision-making was a mistake. According to Wikipedia, Forbes, IMDb & Various Online resources, famous American Football Player George Wright's net worth is $1-5 Million at the age of 72 years old. This show is 90% scripted, the laws they portray in the show are complete non-sense. The stage is being set for a redemptive second season of Jungle Gold, they wrote. Greenhorn gold miners George Wright and Scott Lomu put everything on the line -- their lives included -- to hit pay dirt in the gold-rich and danger-filled jungles of Ghana. 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