Matt Taylor and Den Tarragon Discuss John Wano's King Flag.

The King Flag Scam Hoax.

How a clique of self-styled “truth seekers” manufactured one of the most destructive smears in the UK Truth Movement — and why John Wanoa paid the price.

Between 2018 and 2020, a handful of names began to dominate back-channel gossip, livestream panels, and comment threads in the UK’s so-called Truth Movement: Danny Jones (real name Linden Warden), Den Tarragon, AJ Lashbrook, Nathan Kirkden, Gary Clarke, and a revolving cast of online antagonists. They weren’t building something new. They weren’t exposing verifiable crimes. They were united in a singular mission — to paint New Zealand activist John Wanoa as a scammer, a con-man, and a danger.

The campaign wasn’t just digital mudslinging. It spilled into the real world, with coordinated actions to block Wanoa from travelling, cripple his projects, and tarnish his reputation permanently.

One of the most brazen admissions came straight from the ringleader, Danny Jones, who boasted on a recorded conversation with Den Tarragon that he used personal connections inside Heathrow Customs & Excise to flag Wanoa on arrival and have him detained, questioned, and deported before he could set foot on UK soil. Jones was unapologetic:

“I got mates in Heathrow who work in customs and excise… I told them, watch for this man. They pulled him in straight away and sent him back home. Sorry, lock me up.”

This was just one act in a sustained campaign. Joanne Sollis — then the girlfriend of Gordon Bowen — filed a police complaint in New Zealand that Wanoa had caused her “alarm, distress and fear” for having her name on his Yellow Vest and claiming a multi-million bounty against her. That complaint led directly to Wanoa’s arrest and forced detention in a mental health facility, effectively smashing any immediate hope of furthering his plans.

Meanwhile, the online war raged on: smear panels, coordinated troll chats, and constant repetition of the “scammer” label. The attacks took a toll on Wanoa’s health and mental state.

The Motive.

The motive wasn’t hard to spot — clout. In a truth-movement moment that felt electric with possibility — echoing the counterculture revolutions of the 1960s — each personality was jockeying for influence. David Icke had his reptilian exposés, Kevin Annett was exposing church-linked abuse, Jon Wedger and Bill Maloney were tackling child abuse networks. Into this mix came John Wanoa — an outsider from the far side of the globe with a radical legal and financial vision — but without a UK base of supporters to defend him. That made him the perfect punching bag.

Smearing Wanoa let these figures crown themselves as “protectors” of the movement — the brave ones who “exposed a scam” that never existed.

The Truth About the King’s Flag.

Far from being a scam, Wanoa’s mission was built around a legal-historical claim: that Queen Elizabeth II had wrongfully remained trustee of the Queen Victoria Fund, which — under agreements dating back to King William IV’s colonisation of New Zealand — gave the Moai people a 25% controlling interest in a massive trust worth, by his estimation, £970 trillion trillion.

The King’s Flag — officially the Confederation Sovereign World Flag — symbolised that claim and a vision for a global confederation rooted in sovereignty and equitable resource distribution.

Wanoa’s immediate plan was to launch his Moai Power House tidal energy project in the UK, raising £25 million through share sales. But the shares never went on sale. His entry was blocked, his reputation trashed, and his credibility destroyed before the starting gun had even fired.

The result? A man’s life work obliterated — not by the state, not by corporate cartels, but by a handful of online personalities chasing status in a movement built on “truth.”