How an Worldwide Con Artist Defrauded Individuals for Many years

It’s a con as previous as time: somebody involves you with a compelling story — that they’ve entry to a fortune secreted away from prying eyes, and when you spend money on their mission, you’ll find yourself making your funding again many instances over. An particularly complicated model of this scheme is on the coronary heart of journalist Yepoka Yeebo’s new ebook Anansi’s Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World.

On the middle of the ebook is John Ackay Blay-Miezah, a charismatic determine who rose from humble beginnings in Ghana and used his intelligence and allure to swindle numerous folks world wide. Blay-Miezah’s con was easy: he argued that Ghana’s former president had secreted away untold riches within the type of a trove of gold.

His pitch to buyers was easy: pay him and you possibly can assist remodel Ghana right into a affluent nation — and make a tidy revenue on the facet. And as Yeebo recounts, lots of people — a lot of whom had genuinely good intentions — had been taken in. Anansi’s Gold is an immersive, thrilling learn — and a type of secret historical past of the second half of the twentieth century. InsideHook spoke with Yeebo concerning the strategy of writing the ebook — and her deep connection to the historical past she wrote about.

InsideHook: How did you first change into conscious of John Ackay Blay-Miezah’s story — and what piqued your curiosity to the purpose of writing a ebook about him?

Yepoka Yeebo: I acquired a WhatsApp message from my mum. It was an election yr in Ghana, and many events had been thrown off the poll for irregularities. Individuals had been speaking about whether or not this was authorized, what the precedent was, that type of factor. And one of many greatest circumstances folks might bear in mind was John Ackay Blay-Miezah’s get together being thrown off the poll. Individuals began sending clips round of his 60 Minutes look and discussing not simply his get together getting thrown off the poll, but additionally whether or not his claims had been respectable.

The factor that shocked me about this WhatsApp message is that my mum requested, “What do you consider what he says?”  My mum would all the time ship me outlandish WhatsApps, simply to gauge what I thought of them. Or I’d go off and analysis what they had been speaking about, after which rant again at her.

I used to be shocked, as a result of my mum is a severe individual. She’s a physician. She’s very conservative in her views. So it appeared bizarre that she would assume that there was some validity to those claims. And I used to be type of obsessive about it, and I confirmed it to a lot of mates, and mates of mates. All of them had tales about both large sums of cash going lacking, or large sums of cash being reclaimed from politicians. Somebody advised me about an Indian politician who had precise money stashed in his partitions.

A enterprise journalist good friend advised me that the Nigerian authorities was actively reclaiming cash stolen by officers and stashed in Swiss banks, efficiently. And the weirdest story was that again in Carmel, California, my companion’s dad grew up with a good friend whose dad was a information anchor. I suppose he was simply making an attempt to evade taxes and never pay the IRS. So he simply stashed all their cash someplace, and didn’t inform anybody the place, after which he died all of a sudden. The cash had evaporated into skinny air.

I really feel just like the very present version of which can be the individuals who invested some huge cash in cryptocurrency after which forgot their passcodes, and theoretically had tons of of tens of millions of {dollars}, however…

Nonetheless complicated issues get, it’s all the time surprisingly simple to lose surprising sums of cash. Which I suppose is type of the explanation why John Ackay Blay-Miezah was in a position to persuade so many individuals that there was this large sum of money simply being stashed away. As a result of it occurred on a regular basis.

Anansi’s Gold was an interesting ebook to learn, as a result of past the con-artist narrative, it’s additionally a ebook the place the historical past overlaps with the kind of post-colonial interval within the twentieth century, with Chilly Warfare politics thrown into the combination. Did you have got a way that the scope was going to be so huge while you got down to write it?

I didn’t. I believed I used to be writing a caper, and I believed it was going to be enjoyable and lighthearted — “He took cash from wealthy folks. Isn’t that cool?”  I feel most likely as soon as I began going by the diplomatic cables in earnest, and realizing that Blay-Miezah was excellent at manipulating political occasions and utilizing them to his benefit. At any time when there was a slight change of presidency, that might be an excuse for buyers not getting their cash.

He additionally favored to engineer political crises. He liked throwing a press convention to distract folks from no matter was occurring subsequent. So then I needed to learn up on the context of what was occurring within the nation on the time, simply to get a way of why he was enjoying sure folks in opposition to one another.

It acquired to the purpose the place I used to be writing round his election marketing campaign, after which the trial. And I noticed how politically linked all of the gamers had been, even minor individuals who got here to provide proof. It was bizarre how plugged into Ghana’s energy construction he was, and the way good he was at ingratiating himself and utilizing folks’s reputations as cowl. And that acquired particularly darkish within the Nineteen Eighties, as a result of he was propping up one hell of a murderous dictator.

There’s undoubtedly that shift the place, as you stated, the caper a part of it turns into one thing a lot bleaker, the place he’s coping with this horrible regime. I feel there are individuals who had been Nazi-adjacent who he started working with as nicely. What do you assume it was about him that he was in a position to type of survive so many shifts in governments inside Ghana, and was in a position to endure the place so many different folks had fallen out of favor, or had been being imprisoned?

I feel a part of it was simply that he was extremely clever, and a fast research, and excellent at mimicking folks, and folks round him, and folks’s standing. I used to ask folks this query on a regular basis: “How did he hold getting away with it?”

They advised me, it’s onerous to see now, however on the time, individuals who had been politicians who had been sincere, who weren’t actively grafting, and even simply making connections, they had been civil servants. So they’d to return to their earlier jobs, or make a residing, and needed to survive. And a whole lot of what Blay-Miezah gave them was entry to cash and different folks.

However on high of that, he was simply actually intelligent at utilizing no matter was occurring to his benefit.

And I feel he was additionally fairly shameless about persevering with to attempt to get away with it. He would promise actually something, he would persuade individuals who had been despatched to analyze him that he had a degree, and [then] they had been behind him.

At one level, I went to interview anyone who had been a police officer who was despatched to hold Blay-Miezah’s diplomatic passport, so he couldn’t misuse it. He was pretty, and once I was in his workplace, I observed that there was, like, a globe up in a nook, on the very high of a bookcase. After which there was a framed photograph of Blay-Miezah subsequent to it.

After I talked to a supply who had been in intelligence on the time, he stated that this individual had mainly been despatched to London, gone AWOL, after which the subsequent time they noticed him, it was on 60 Minutes, and he was being described as a police officer working for Blay-Miezah. He did this within the U.Ok., he did this to investigators within the States — he simply charmed his approach out of every thing by promising folks precisely what they wished. I feel perhaps he knew greater than most individuals what folks wished.

As you wrote, Blay-Miezah actually had this concept from a really early age — when he wasn’t even 20, he had been in a position to set himself up as a healer and had all of those folks dedicated to him. He was in a position to mission this picture of absurd success, even on the earliest potential stage that he might.

I simply bear in mind one of many British investigators I talked to saying, “Blay-Miezah was stated to have the ability to put the evil eye on folks. And I’m fairly positive he did it to me.”  I don’t consider in that stuff, however I acquired a chill. It’s type of extraordinary. I additionally assume he all the time appeared and performed the half. I feel that was an enormous a part of every thing as nicely.

Was it tough discovering individuals who had interacted with him who had been prepared to speak on the document? Have been there nonetheless a good variety of folks on the market from the completely different teams that he had spoken to through the years?

There have been. As a result of I used to be scripting this over the course of six years, a whole lot of them had been older and a whole lot of them handed away as we had been enjoying cellphone tag or establishing interviews or I used to be getting messages to them, which was deeply unhappy. It’s all the time irritating when the final one that might presumably find out about this nook of a narrative is gone.

I all the time say, if I might do one factor, it could be to  drive folks to make recordings about their lives and have them sealed. I feel this was truly a part of the Northern Eire peace course of. As soon as they die, these change into out there publicly, so all of the unbelievable stuff that solely they know will likely be recognized.

There was a whole lot of that, which was actually tough. And I misplaced my grandfather round that point as nicely, so I felt that basically keenly. However there have been tons of people that most well-liked to remain off the document for varied causes. I feel some folks had been nonetheless deeply embarrassed that they’d been taken in by this. Some folks nonetheless consider, however they simply didn’t need to be related to it anymore. Some folks had misplaced their household and their properties and their property and had needed to rebuild their lives afterwards, they usually simply didn’t need to speak about it in nice depth. After which there have been individuals who had been completely happy to talk. A few of them thought that Blay-Miezah was an absolute criminal, however the tales had been true.

I imply, as you had been scripting this, there have been a couple of very sympathetic individuals who ended up being taken in by Blay-Miezah. You discuss concerning the head of Tata Brewing, who has accomplished this very admirable factor in making a domestically owned enterprise and a brewery and was taken in and misplaced every thing on account of it. There was additionally a priest based mostly in Philadelphia who had been very concerned within the civil rights motion. It’s heartbreaking to learn that.

If anybody ought to have ended up within the scheme the place the cash did truly materialize, it ought to have been folks like James Edward Woodruff and J.Ok. Siaw who labored and believed and put quite a lot of their lives behind constructing issues. It broke my coronary heart each single time I discovered extra about both of them.

I acquired the sense in direction of the tip from  tapes and statements that Blay-Miezah wished all of the issues he had promised folks to come back true and was actively making an attempt to make that potential, as ridiculous as that sounds and as complicated as that might have been. He was, for some time, satisfied that if he turned president he might no less than give folks contracts or pay them off in a method or one other and provides them what they had been owed that approach.

There are many individuals who acquired caught up on this, and whereas everyone was to a sure extent being grasping — how might cash meant for a nation be randomly distributed privately by a random man? — in addition they wished to construct nice issues or restore communities and construct unity between two completely different Black components of the world. They had been enthusiastic about constructing monorails and ports and crops. And, yeah, it’s unhappy that every one of that got here to naught, as a result of a whole lot of it could have been outstanding.

I feel you used the phrase “too massive to fail” at one level to check with the dimensions of this kind of con. Have been there different accounts of cons or Ponzi schemes or simply monetary misdeeds generally that you simply noticed parallels with?

Crypto is the plain one, as a result of so many individuals so efficiently scammed folks by exploiting the complexities of the best way crypto works and the truth that folks didn’t really want to know a lot about it to need to make cash from it. Which is type of precisely what was occurring with Blay-Miezah’s buyers exterior of Ghana.

The entire leveraging political energy and operating for president stuff has some very apparent parallels. As a result of I began in 2016, that wasn’t the place I believed it was going to go. After which it went there.

There’s yet one more factor I used to be simply fascinated with the place I believed: that’s creepy. On the coronary heart of it’s the approach that lots of people would love one thing for nothing and are prepared to again completely insane premises to get anyplace close to that. A number of years in the past, there was a rip-off in Ghana the place a man was promoting both gold bars or shares of gold bars, besides it turned out he didn’t have any gold in any respect. However by that time, hundreds of individuals had invested and misplaced every thing.

When folks describe a enterprise factor and also you assume: that’s too sophisticated to work or that’s fairly clearly going to be a Ponzi scheme or like a multi-level advertising factor, it was a type of issues the place you’re pondering, “However the place did this man get all of the gold?”  What particular enterprise and industrial entry does he have that nobody else does? The idiot’s gold was now not idiot’s gold; it turned gold.

Did researching and scripting this ebook change the best way something that you simply had thought concerning the twentieth century historical past of Ghana?

Sure, to an astonishing diploma. Early on once I noticed a reputation come up, I’d need to analysis this individual and the way they intersected with the story. I’d go and pull every thing I might discover at like a British library or I’d search by educational databases and there’d be like a reasonably wholesome dose of secondary stuff, however not practically sufficient to reply any of the questions that I had.

So I used to be searching for biographical info on Ignatius Kutu Acheampong, for instance, who was a frontrunner throughout the Seventies. There needs to be a lot there, and there simply wasn’t. I ended up having to go to major sources repeatedly. It acquired actually irritating, as a result of it simply doesn’t make sense that for a longtime nation with a reasonably well-known historical past there wasn’t a lot secondary literature.

It acquired actually irritating additionally as a result of with major stuff, you need to crawl by it to search out stuff. If you’re taking a look at microfilm it’s painful, however then it simply began to get actually cool and actually enjoyable, since you’re thumbing by newspapers, you’re seeing all of the facet tales. That is what folks wore, that is what folks did to exit, that is what they had been into. That is what the financial system was like — all these tales of individuals’s lives that I wouldn’t have encountered if I didn’t need to stare at newspapers. 

At one level I used to be at Temple, and the Philadelphia Night Bulletin had donated their archives to the library there. In addition to microfilm, there was simply their morgue, the place folks had clipped the clips and put them in alphabetical order. I picked up one of many clips and it was from 1912. And I believed, “Ought to I be touching this?” After which I began to get actually obsessive about all these fascinating particulars which you could actually discover from major sources.

However once more, it was time-consuming, costly. I acquired fortunate in that I had entry to educational databases, which not everyone does; they’re extremely costly on high of every thing. It simply actually annoyed me, as a result of that lack of fabric meant that folks might say something and it could be actually onerous to refute even essentially the most outlandish claims. And that is actually how Blay-Miezah did in addition to he did. You make historical past inaccessible. You make proof inaccessible. After which you possibly can misinform anybody.

That was actually irritating, particularly within the ’80s, as a result of it simply coincided with my household historical past. And I noticed the very actual results of that. And it was devastating.

How did your loved ones’s historical past coincide with the scope of the ebook?

So each my dad and mom had been in political organizations between 1979 and 1981. And my dad was truly a politician beneath Jerry John Rawlings very, very briefly till Rawlings tried to assassinate him a number of instances.

Oh my god.

Yeah. And so whereas I used to be engaged on the early-’80s portion of the ebook, Jerry Rawlings truly died.

It’s the standard factor on social media, the place folks have tons to say when anyone this polarizing dies. However what shocked me was that members of my family had pretty issues to say about Rawlings. Completely glowing, particularly the youthful ones. And so at one level, it was giving me a headache. I needed to ask certainly one of my cousins — I known as her or texted her — “Do you not know why we couldn’t come again to Ghana?”  And she or he didn’t. Her dad and mom had not advised her that my father was in exile, and my mother needed to simply go away the nation.

That is my family — info that everyone had, that had outlined my entire life. It’s why I’m in Britain. It’s why I couldn’t return to Ghana for a really very long time. It’s why I didn’t meet my cousins or my grandparents till approach later. The time I had with these folks was like, stolen from me and my sister and my mother and my dad.

I bear in mind this was proper earlier than it acquired actually darkish, I used to be simply chatting to my mother about what it was like.

And she or he stated, ”I’m a girls’s organizer.” In order that they’d exit into the countryside and discuss to folks about operating for workplace, voting, capability constructing, that type of stuff. She stated they’d meet up in Accra, after which everyone would disperse. After which slowly, like, her mates stopped coming again. They only began to vanish.

Then she began to weep, and I noticed that she hadn’t even thought of that for a really, very very long time.

So the concept that all this had occurred, and had like, mainly outlined my life — and my very own cousins, who I like dearly, and who’re very well-informed and really extremely educated, weren’t conscious of this — was infuriating. 

I observed how totally Rawlings had laundered his fame once I was wanting by Getty Photographs. There have been footage of him with Michael Jackson, and Invoice and Hillary Clinton. He ran this entire reputation-laundering operation that was flawless, exquisitely, exquisitely executed. And he used it to cowl up the truth that he and his household simply robbed the nation the whole time, appropriated state-owned corporations and property, hand over fist.

As soon as, a supply advised me a narrative. Rawlings had a extremely giant home in a really central a part of Accra. Subsequent to it was an empty lot that was an previous colonial period constructing. And people had been slowly being sorted by by the land fee, who would then go and promote them. But it surely was dilapidated, it was on an acre. So when he was in coaching, he moved into it and squatted it and took care of it. And Rawlings’s home was proper subsequent door. After which, the supply acquired posted elsewhere and went away.

When he went again to go to a good friend, he couldn’t discover the doorway to the place he had been staying, solely Rawlings’s home. And it took him strolling across the block a few instances to comprehend that Rawlings had simply had a wall constructed across the adjoining acre that completely matched the partitions of his home. It’s just like the land disappeared, and no person had something to cease it. This was latest, too.

It was only a mindfuck to see how one thing so simple as me not with the ability to search for a fairly just lately written biography of Common Acheampong simply screwed each historical past, but additionally was fucking up the present day. As a result of this man has so totally laundered his fame, and folks had been letting him actually steal land. It’s legal. 

I like having arguments. The happiest second I’ve had since this ebook got here out — and I’ve been lucky, there have been a lot — was that I noticed folks in Ghana… The financial system is for shit, and there’s an election developing. And other people had been saying, ”It’s time for an additional coup, get these folks out.” 

And so lots of people responded, “Do you not know what occurs throughout a coup?” I noticed somebody making this argument. After which I noticed that he had little sections from like an book to again up his argument, and I clicked on the image and the reference was me. He didn’t reference me, but it surely was my ebook. And I believed, “Sure, that’s all I need. I wished you to have the ability to discover folks on the web, with the knowledge I used to be in a position to make available. That’s all I wished.”

In Anansi’s Gold, you point out {that a} 60 Minutes report from the late 80s actually was type of the one time Blay-Miezah’s work was put into the highlight. Have there been any tangible reactions from folks because the ebook has been revealed?

Sure and no. I really feel prefer it’s early days but. I’ve not been again to Ghana since and Ghana is the place I’d actually hear it from folks. Individuals have been pretty. Numerous folks have been super-friendly and argumentative about my particulars — or the concept that I might write about like a legal in any respect. Which I totally perceive. There are many approach higher, far more deserving, honorable guardians to jot down about. However crime is entertaining to me.

I used to be actually solely fearful, no less than once I was writing concerning the reactions I’d get from folks like Rawlings or Jewel Ackah. And it was insane that they handed away. Lots of people from that period handed away earlier than my ebook was revealed. I’m positive I’ll hear from folks in additional element, particularly from Ghana. I do know it’s controversial. I discovered a whole lot of stuff that contradicts prevailing narratives about historic occasions. I make beloved folks look rather a lot much less like they need to be beloved folks. It’s a textual content, it’s full of knowledge. There’s tons there and there’s tons for folks to argue about. And that’s type of the enjoyable of it as nicely.