To be fair I only read the top part of the post given the story was fairly obvious and just hit quote.
Sense of humour? This is a world-class story of a nutcase taken seriously by people, who got away with bizarre/ completely fraudulent behaviour for a long time (took more than 5 million dollars off suckers for something that didn't exist and behaved like he was Roman Abramovich at Richmond Athletic, a minor amateur provincial club).Kiwis are particularly prone to being conned by farcical "foreign experts" and local charlatans.
I'm originally from Nelson and a decade ago even the supposedly highly qualified American woman who was Chief Psychiatrist for the Nelson region was exposed as a male Polish illegal immigrant to the US who'd had a sex change who'd faked all his/her psychiatric qualifications and got away with it in NZ for years (also so bizarre it was hilarious in my book...)
People are taking the Serepisos situation a bit too seriously, so thought a humorous true story from a similar but strange parallel universe of failed football backers might be good...