WHEN two Mormons from Utah signed up to star in a reality show about gold mining in Ghana, they had no idea what they were getting into.

Within one season, they were being accused of racism, exploitation, destroying the environment and even murder. And one of their original crew had taken his own life.

Scott Lomu and George Wright, hapless heroes of Discovery’s Jungle Gold, finally had to flee the country by plane to escape arrest and the armed militia who seemed to be pursuing them.

But the optimistic, God-fearing pair are now back in the game, trying their hand at mining in Guyana, on South America’s Caribbean coast, posting hair-raising videos on Instagram.

They say they’ve learnt from their catastrophic, ratings-winning sojourn in West Africa.

TV GOLD

Clean-cut Lomu and Wright were working together in Utah’s 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.

In 2010, they and a friend, Wally Macias, invested in a small operation and took turns flying out to work there. 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. Villagers set up roadblocks and demanded hundreds of dollars. Wright caught malaria. They found almost no gold, sinking the last of their cash into the failed enterprise.

The following year, they tried again, on the land of a Ghanaian Mormon bishop. It was another disaster. It looked like their foray into mining was over — until they stumbled across Discovery’s Alaskan mining reality show, Gold Rush. The Mormon miners submitted a proposal to Raw TV, the British company that produced the program, and waited.

“We were entirely without expectations,” Wright told news.com.au. “But we were willing to wear our heart on our sleeve.”

In November 2011, two things happened. Macias took his own life, and the wheels were set in motion for their star-crossed show.

POISON, ROBBERY, VIOLENCE

By this time, Ghana’s mining industry was in chaos, with Al Jazeera reporting on the dangers of illegal mining, fuelled by “widespread corruption”.

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. There were reports of armed robberies in Chinese mining camps as locals and foreign rivals fought for land.

The Mormons and their production team had paid a village chief $12,500 to mine a large plot of land, but they arrived to find it packed with Chinese miners. The chief warned that if they fought the miners, they would be killed. They forfeited the cash and moved to a less profitable site. It may have been their worst nightmare, but it made gripping TV.

“A lot of people are like, ‘Oh there’s a camera, we’ll act like this,’” said Wright. “We were like, ‘we’ll show them the failures, the terrible, horrible stuff. We didn’t think it would make us look cool — and it certainly didn’t.”

In one of the show’s most-watched episodes, an excavator for Lomu and Wright is tearing up cocoa trees when an angry farmer approaches with a machete. A fight breaks out and martial arts-trained “angry George”, as he was nicknamed, strangles the man until he passes out.

But Wright doesn’t regret fighting back. “At the moment I jumped in, he was right over [our security guard] and was going to push his head underwater. It was a life or death situation.”

In the final episode of the seven-part series, the struggling pair are offered the chance to work on a large-scale operation for a rich Ghanaian, if they can raise $15,000. In a surreal scene, Lomu jumps in the car with a gold bar he says is worth $75,000, before a masked man runs out of the jungle firing a machine gun, steals the gold and runs off.

Yeah, I just about hate the leads of #JUNGLEGOLD 8 min in. Am I supposed to feel bad for their debt as they exploit Africans? #Colonialism — Gyan H (@gyanlh) October 27, 2012

good job discovery channel youve made a reality show about the rape and theft of african natural resources #junglegold #kinglepold — Angelo Sylvester (@AngeloSylvester) December 15, 2012

GLOBAL OUTRAGE

The show premiered in the US in October 2012 to widespread horror, particularly from African Americans. Viewers claimed the show was racist, portrayed locals in outdated colonial stereotypes, and exploited impoverished Ghanians for money and ratings. Petitions called for its cancellation and Wright and Lomu were attacked on social networks and in the media. Most assumed they were mining illegally.

“That was hard,” said Wright. “We really liked the people of Ghana, the people we worked with. 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.”

Back in Ghana, things were no better. The Minerals Commission claimed the crew had pushed ahead without adequate permissions and secretly asked the country’s National Security Agency to investigate them, fearing a stampede of greedy foreign miners, according to Buzzfeed.

Regardless, the season was a hit.

In April 2013, it premiered on Ghanaian TV. Viewers were shocked that Americans would broadcast illegal mining, and activists claimed throwing money at people unused to financial decision-making was a mistake. Worst of all, popular radio station Joy FM claimed Wright had killed the man he was filmed choking. “It was terrifying, it was really scary,” Wright admitted.

Inusah Fuseini, minister of lands and natural resources, said the show “portrayed Ghana as a jungle”, vowing to arrest the Mormons.

CANCELLED

The production team swore to take a different approach to the second series. They banned workers from touching mercury, paid workers twice the going rate and hired security. Lomu and Wright promised to show people more respect and understanding.

“There were things we didn’t expect, things that normally wouldn’t happen to us happened because the cameras were there,” said Lomu. “One of the biggest lessons we’ve learned is dealing with people. It’s very easy to lose your temper, it very easy to feel like everybody’s trying to take advantage of you and trying to take your land. We’ve learned the people of Ghana — and we’ve always known this — are great, humble people.”

But their return to Ghana was to be even more troubled than round one.

First, their new landowner revealed the mining licence wasn’t ready, so they couldn’t film any actual work.

As they prepared for shooting one day in May, they heard that armed militia had attacked miners near their old site. It sounded like they were the target. The cast and crew hid at a nearby compound, where they discovered Wright was suspected of murder and the authorities wanted them arrested. It was time to bail out.

Not everyone celebrated their departure. They had brought in work and money after all. A month later, the government cracked down illegal foreign miners, and thousands of Chinese nationals were also deported, removing a vital source of income for many villages.

When season two of Jungle Gold aired in August 2013, it flopped, competing with NFL for ratings. “There was a sense of disappointment,” said Wright. “Scott and I know we could have done better. Cameras or no cameras, we went out there to provide for our families and I feel we let them down with some wrong decisions ... We didn’t properly plan.”

Despite their failures, the pair remain hopeful for the future. In April 2015, they were hired by Utah-based mining company Ensurge to share their mining expertise in Guyana and help attract investors.

Wright and Lomu have a plan for a new reality show, about mining and selling gold and their home lives. They’re hoping things will be different this time.

“Not everything works out how you want it to,” said Wright. “But what you do with that really defines who you are.”

emma.reynolds@news.com.au / @emmareyn