The Niue government says it effectively has some of the people belonging to a mystery group, linked to a California cult, under house arrest.
The group, which had been promising investments on the island, had accumulated enormous debts over the past eight months, but around 50 percent of that was cleared this week.
The immigration minister, Fisa Pihigia, says about 70 percent of the money owed to the Matavai Resort hotel has been paid but about 70,000 US dollars is still owed to other businesses on the island.
He says one of the three has been ordered to leave Niue in a week and the others are more or less under house arrest.
"We have already taken legal action and the court order is to put them in prison for 3 months and also ask them to pay. We are reluctant to put them in prison because - there is a reason - that it will also cost the government to look after them up there. So we have taken the first step of asking one of them to leave by the 11th of this month, and the other two, we are going to hold onto them until we decide what further action [is] to be taken."
