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Paraone Tamihana - Source: ONE News -
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A man who promised to pay for a family to go to the Commonwealth
Games is being investigated by police over allegations of
fraud.
Would-be billionaire Paraone Tamihana allegedly built up a fantasy
profile, claiming to own a super yacht, ordered gold ingots for a
celebrity party and also claimed he had won a billion-dollar
contract with a Dubai-based company.
High-profile event organiser Mark Cathro, of Brand Events, said Tamihana hired him to launch his business called The House of Ra, which was to be held on his new superyacht, for which he had even hired a captain and the party was to be attended by richlisters including Eric Watson and Graham Hart.
"They started off with invitations for their guests. They wanted us to buy 48 iPhones, they upgraded that to gold bullion from the Perth mint," Cathco said.
But Cathro said he started to get suspicious of Tamihana when there was no money forthcoming.
He tracked down the seller of the superyacht and found that Tamihana was not the buyer.
"I'd like them to be held accountable with what they're doing. I want their operation shut down," Cathro said.
But Cathro also found out that Tamihana was not the only person involved in the new business.
A woman called Jennis Lawrence, who is a general manager at Competenz, a training organisation which receives some government funding, was assisting Tamihana.
Lawrence, who said Tamihana was a family member, used her contacts from Competenz for his fantasy superyacht launch.
Cathro, using a hidden camera, confronted Lawrence about the money The House of Ra owed him, asking her if Tamihana even had any of the money he claimed to have.
"I am quite unnerved that a person of your position who is doing what you do for the company you work for would be involved in this," Cathro said to Lawrence.
Lawrence insisted that Tamihana still had the money and that Cathro would be paid soon.
But ONE News has found that the Competenz contacts used by Lawrence have also not been paid for the work they did.
And in a sinister turn, it was revealed that Tamihana was using Wellington lawyer Lance Pratley for his business dealings.
Except that it wasn't the real Lance Pratley, who told ONE News that he had never heard of Tamihana and said all of the supposed emails written by him and the email address that Tamihana claims is Pratley's are all false.
He has now laid a complaint with police.
Dubai deal
A former employee of Tamihana, who does not want to be identified, said Tamihana told him he was getting money from the Jumeirah Group in Dubai.
It was a $5 billion contract that was to last for 25 years and the role of the company was to look after very wealthy people from the United Arab Emirates, who worked for BP.
But a Jumeirah Group spokesperson said an email address which ONE News obtained was not theirs and they had now passed it on to their legal department.
And amid the lies, an Auckland Pacific Islander family is ruing the day they got a promise from Tamihana, who told them he would fund their trip to India for the Commonwealth Games so that they could watch their son compete.
He promised them first class tickets, two security guards and upmarket accommodation.
They even stopped fundraising themselves because of the promise but have now just found out that the trip was never going to happen.
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