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WET & HOT NEWS ! > Tongan Police
Dentist Leads Tongan Police to Sunken Ship
The 17 Feb. 2010 at 11:59Illegal RecoveriesFrom New Tang Dynasty Television
What does a shipwreck and dentistry have in common ?
It's a riddle that's just been unraveled by Tonga police. Suspicions were aroused when people began turning up to this dental practice with lumps of gold to be melted.
[Teisi Taimani, Dental Surgery Assistant]:
"From last year to this year many people were coming in with it. The end of each side, you see it's like it's gold there, because its shiny on the edge where they cut it."
The pieces being brought in were mostly too big to be melted. Police issued search warrants for five suspects.
[Chris Kelley, Tongan Police Commander]:
"The addresses yielded items and objects as well as the quantity of ammunition which we were also very interested in."
The recovered booty led authorities to a previously unknown shipwreck off the Tonga coast. Four people, including the older man seen here, have been charged with taking items from a sunken vessel.
[Chris Kelley, Tongan Police Commander]:
"Shipwrecks within the territorial waters are government property."
But all that glitters is not necessarily gold - tests are yet to determine whether the yellow metal is the real thing.Shipwreck found in Tonga may have gold
The 15 Feb. 2010 at 09:15Illegal Recoveries
From TVNZ
Police have found a shipwreck in Tonga after large numbers of people started turning up at dentists wanting to melt down gold items.
The ship is a mystery but four men have been charged with removing items from a wreck and not reporting it.
One of those four is navigator Tuakalau Loufau, who along with three others, has been charged with finding a shipwreck and taking items from it.
The police were tipped off about the mystery shipwreck off the main island of Tongatapu, when people started turning up to dental surgeries wanting to melt down what appeared to be gold.
"From last year to this year many people were coming in with it&the end of each side it's like gold there because it's shiny where they cut it," dental surgery assistant Teisi Taimani said.
The gold-like tubes measured up to 12 centimetres.
"When they came in we can't do anything with it. It's too big, we told them we cant do anything," says Taimani.
But when the police heard - they did do something, issuing five search warrants.
"Shipwrecks within the territorial waters are government property and so you're required when you find one to notify authorities and not to remove any items from that wreck," says Tongan Police Commander Chris Kelley.