SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Tonga, the Pacific’s only kingdom, says the king’s court jester is laughing all the way to the bank after pocketing millions of dollars from an overseas investment fund, according to a lawsuit.
Exact details of the missing money remain unclear, but according to a suit filed by the Tongan government in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Monday, as much as $24 million has vanished from the $ 26 million fund. The fund was built up by the impoverished nation of 100,000 Polynesians by selling passports—mainly to Chinese from Hong Kong worried about the return of the territory to Beijing, the suit alleges.
The loss is staggering for a nation run on a budget of around $55 million a year and dependent mainly on revenue from exporting pumpkins and money sent home by Tongans living overseas. The suit said the fund was set up for “the benefit of the Tongan people.”
Tonga is an archipelago of 170 islands located about two-thirds of the way between Hawaii and New Zealand. The former British protectorate gained independence in 1970.
According to the suit, the money was withdrawn from a Bank of America account in San Francisco by the king’s official court jester, Jesse Bogdonoff, a California-based investment adviser living in Sonoma County’s Penngrove. The suit alleges that the funds were transferred to failed investments and pocketed by Bogdonoff and others.
The suit also said that Bogdonoff and associates paid themselves “millions of dollars in charges, commissions and fees” that were not disclosed to the trust.
Bogdonoff, who reportedly was appointed jester after impressing King Tupou Taufa’ahau with investment advice and because he was born April 1, could not be reached for comment.
The nation’s consulate here did not return messages.
The losses from the Tongan account came to light last year when the nation’s 10-year-old pro-democracy movement began probing it in parliament, which is dominated by lawmakers appointed by the royal family and Tonga’s 33 noble families.
The disclosure of the missing money led to the resignation of one of the government’s investment fund trustees, Deputy Prime Minister Tevita Tupou. Also resigning was Education Minister Tutotasi Fakafanua, who was finance minister in 1999 when the money was withdrawn.
