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The Nigerians are coming to Tonga

Brits take note – see what happens when there is no decent succession plan for your monarchy?

[87 year old] King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV, who lost $37 million of the kingdom’s money when he gave it to his American court jester, appears to be falling for a Nigerian-type scam.

Oh dear.

Talks were under way “to bring a billion dollars to invest in Tonga to help fund many projects in Tonga” and neighbouring countries, he said.

He would be involved in a telephone link with the investors to set a date to visit Tonga.

“Talks with this bank are for them to use the Reserve Bank of Tonga, to leave their money there and take the funds for the project from the Reserve Bank.

And you thought Prince Charles regularly dressing up like an Imam was a bit embarrassing.

(Via Silent Running)

11 comments to The Nigerians are coming to Tonga

  • Julian Morrison

    What amuses me is the thought of what will happen after the Head Honcho finds out he’s been had.

    Will Tonga declare war against Nigeria? Or send a war canoe for a CIA style infiltrate-and-snatch-the-crook mission?

  • Patrick

    That’s about a year or so old now. Apparently it was true though.

  • Thanks so much for that contribution, Patrick – I’m sure it’s enormously appreciated by all.

    Incidentally, I checked the date on the article – 2nd of November, 2005. Not exactly fresh news, but some way off a year. Irrelevant; a story that dated can’t possibly be amusing, right?

  • kcb

    How very odd.

  • Mike Lorrey

    If you actually read the article in its entirety, it appears that the mysterious foreign investor is actually an American, not a Nigerian. Sounds to me like a thrillionaire intent on getting out from under Uncle Sugar. With a billion bucks in the Tongan Reserve Bank, that could be the basis of the sort of digital cash put out by the First Distributed Republic in Neal Stephensons, “The Great Simoleon Caper”.

  • Mike Lorrey

    If you actually read the article in its entirety, it appears that the mysterious foreign investor is actually an American, not a Nigerian. Sounds to me like a thrillionaire intent on getting out from under Uncle Sugar. With a billion bucks in the Tongan Reserve Bank, that could be the basis of the sort of digital cash put out by the First Distributed Republic in Neal Stephensons, “The Great Simoleon Caper”.

  • Walter E. Wallis

    The Brits have a succession plan – pray for the Queen outliving Chuck.

  • Verity

    To Walter E. Wallis, obviously an American. I suggest you keep your ill-informed jokes for your own family and not ours. Prince Charles’s name is Prince Charles, or the Prince of Wales.

    Chuck is not a British diminutive of Charles, thus, by employing it you do not “cleverly” diminish him in our eyes.

  • viliami

    I hope that Tongan Government should review this offer before committing to this. Nigerian has been known of doing bad businesses through internet. I hope that whoever is trying to make deal with these
    people will check with the US FBI or CIA before setting
    anything with them.

  • Hey, I liked the link to the Imam of Wales picture. Oh, and look! The Dorkesse of Cornwall stands next to him!

  • Sarah

    The person involved was not even Nigerian! Now I know that Nigerians have done a lot of internet harm but they seem to get blamed when they are not even the ones involved!!! I got several emails from some weirdos who thought they could con me into sending them money (they claimed they had millions of dollars from some weird source and needed a little money from me to get the money out).. I didn’t respond cos I already knew…but later found out they were from a country in Central Europe (they claimed to be Nigerians!!!)