Giant mango statue was stolen and it was all a big hoax

A giant 33-foot-tall statue known as The Big Mango was stolen Monday, and it was all revealed as a hoax from a chicken restaurant chain.

But, why? Well, we don’t know yet.

According to The Guardian, the 7-ton tourist attraction in Bowen, Australia seemed to vanish overnight. When its disappearance was noticed, questions were raised as to why no police report had been filed.

However, The Guardian states that a man named Bob called into an ABC radio station in Queensland stating that he found the mango.

“There’s an old road that leads up into the scrub from the back of the information centre,” Bob told the radio station. “What they’ve done is put it on a truck and taken it up there and laid it on its side in the bush, and at the end that’s facing towards Bowen they’ve covered it up with tree branches and shade cloths so nobody can see it.”

The restaurant chain Nando’s, claimed the responsibility for the disappearance of the mango statue from the tourist center by posting a video on their YouTube page and showing the process they took to remove it in the middle of the night.

Nando’s opened the YouTube video with, “How do you ‘borrow’ the world’s biggest mango? With great difficulty …” and then showed how the statue was removed from its post with two large cranes and a crew of workers.

However, Nando’s didn’t reveal why they stole the Mango in the first place, but ended their YouTube video with, “Why? All will be revealed soon…ish.”

But how soonish?

According to the Bowen’s Big Mango Facebook page, the Mango is in safe hands and the rest of the story will be revealed on Friday.

NPR stated in an article that The Big Mango was erected 12 years ago and cost $90,000 when it was built. The statue commemorates the ‘Kensington Pride’ mango that is grown in the area as Bowen is known as the mango capital of the country.