Con man who fleeced millions of dollars dies in self-declared 'kingdom'

Noah Musingku, a con man who styled himself as a king, has died in his self-declared kingdom in the south of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea.

Musingku fleeced millions of dollars from people in PNG, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Australia and elsewhere from the late 1990s through his Ponzi scheme U-Vistract.

A death notice posted on the Bougainville Independence Movement Facebook page said Musingku died last week from an illness he had fought for over three weeks.

Musingku was buried by people in military uniform, and a later post showed pictures of what was said to be his burial, with men dressed in military fatigues burying a coffin as a small crowd watched on.

Timothy Masiu, the member for South Bougainville in PNG's national parliament, confirmed Musingku's death and expressed mixed feelings about the passing of his schoolmate.

Musingku's death brings to a close one of the region's most extraordinary, high-profile financial scams, which started in the late 1990s with the promise of 100 per cent interest per month.

In 2010, ABC journalist Liam Fox met Bougainville's self-proclaimed 'king' Noah Musingku, a fugitive con man with his own armed militia, holed up in a village in the island's south.