Anansi's Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World

4.2 | 209 ratings

Price: 20.99

Last update: 09-10-2024

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New Yorker Best Book of the Year "A fascinating story brilliantly told.”—The Boston Globe *"A non-fiction masterpiece."—Philadelphia Inquirer The astounding, never-before-told story of how an audacious Ghanaian con artist pulled off one of the 20th century’s longest-running and most spectacular frauds.

When Ghana won its independence from Britain in 1957, it instantly became a target for home-grown opportunists and rapacious Western interests determined to snatch any assets that colonialism hadn’t already stripped. A CIA-funded military junta ousted the new nation’s inspiring president, Kwame Nkrumah, then falsely accused him of hiding the country’s gold overseas.

Into this big lie stepped one of history’s most charismatic scammers, a con man to rival the trickster god Anansi. Born into poverty in Ghana and trained in the United States, John Ackah Blay-Miezah declared himself custodian of an alleged Nkrumah trust fund worth billions. You, too, could claim a piece--if only you would “invest” in Blay-Miezah’s fictitious efforts to release the equally fictitious fund. Over the 1970s and ‘80s, he and his accomplices—including Ghanaian state officials and Nixon’s former attorney general--scammed hundreds of millions of dollars out of thousands of believers. Blay-Miezah lived in luxury, deceiving Philadelphia lawyers, London financiers, and Seoul businessmen alike, all while eluding his FBI pursuers. American prosecutors called his scam “one of the most fascinating--and lucrative--in modern history.”

In Anansi’s Gold, Yepoka Yeebo chases Blay-Miezah’s ever-wilder trail and discovers, at long last, what really happened to Ghana’s missing wealth. She unfolds a riveting account of Cold War entanglements, international finance, and postcolonial betrayal, revealing how what we call “history” writes itself into being, one lie at a time.

John W. Pearson

“It is not my job to keep people from being stupid.”

Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2023

Oh, my. I have never attacked a 400-page book with such energy, fascination, and curiosity. I saw “Anansi’s Gold” at a bookstore recently, and the bookstore owner had placed a note by the book: “The best non-fiction I’ve read since opening the store!” I can’t stop talking about it this page-turner and these highlights:

THE GUY FROM GHANA: John Blay-Miezah, a cigar-smoking and charismatic young man from Ghana, had big ideas and big plans. He traveled to Philadelphia, New York, and London—and told an unbelievable tale. Many assumed that the story was so unbelievable that it must be true.

THE GOLD: In Bucharest, at the deathbed of Ghana’s first president, “our man” (as the author labels him), says he was entrusted with the location of billions of dollars in diamonds, gold, and cash—all secured for safe return to his beloved country.

THE GIG: John Blay-Miezah just needed operating expenses to locate the money (hint: Swiss banks!) and receive authorization to bring it back to Ghana.

THE GOAL: The proverbial chicken-in-every pot for every deserving Ghanian. But warning! “Anansi” (depicted as a spider in folklore) is featured in a memorable series of children’s stories about wisdom, but also trickery.

THE GULLIBLE: Oh, my. The plan unfolds and hooks in leading business leaders, bankers, preachers and—yes—more charlatans from across the globe. Even Nixon’s disgraced attorney general, John Mitchell, signs on. Wait…is this fiction or nonfiction?

THE GREED: Why do you think swindlers and scammers are successful, for a time?

NO SPOILER ALERT…but I will tease you with these TRUE or FALSE statements:

#1. TRUE OR FALSE? “Still, [John] Mitchell’s certainty was enough to convince [Kofi] Quantson—once again—that the Oman Ghana Trust Fund might actually exist. Quantson had repeatedly vowed to have nothing more to do with Blay-Miezah. But like so many of the investors, he found it impossible to stay away from him. . . the possibility that it might actually be real—was just too compelling.”

#2. TRUE OR FALSE? In Philadelphia’s City Hall, Judge Lynee Abraham heard the charges again Robert Ellis, Blay-Miezah’s partner in the Oman Ghana Trust Fund. “…she was not prepared to have her courtroom turned into a circus.” She told the attorney for Ellis that at the Jan. 5, 1987, hearing, “…you will need a chair and a whip.”

#3. TRUE OR FALSE? “Judge Abraham found the facts of the case, and the statements that many of the witnesses had made, extraordinary. But, she said, ‘It is not my job to keep people from being stupid.’”

#4. TRUE OR FALSE? Pleading for government permission to be released from house arrest in Ghana—so he could finalize the funding of the Oman Ghana Trust Fund—Blay-Miezah offered this guarantee if he returned home empty-handed: “Captain, take me to the firing range…and have me shot. That is, if I fail.”

#5. TRUE OR FALSE? Gerald Smith, a “woebegone bank manager” who had been allegedly duped by Blay-Miezah, was arrested by the FBI. In court, Smith’s attorney told the judge that Blay-Miezah “could sell a Toyota to the president of General Motors.”

#6. T or F? Blay-Miezah was married three times. He and his third wife were still legally married to previous spouses when that wedding was celebrated. Friends of Blay-Miezah’s second wife, Gladys, called her “Columbo” (after the TV detective!).

#7. T or F? In 1971, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger notified every American diplomatic mission with a warning about Blay-Miezah’s apparent frauds. “In February 1974, Blay-Miezah’s investors started visiting Accra. By rights, this should have been the end of his scam—instead, it turned the investors from believers to evangelists.”

#8. T or F? So he could pardon himself, if needed (sound familiar?), Blay-Miezah ran for president of Ghana in 1979. His People’s Vanguard Party was just one of 23 political parties. Imagine!

#9. T or F? In prison (once again), Blay-Miezah “quoted at length, a hymn he had admired from his childhood, by James Russell Lowell,
One to ev’ry man and nation
Comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth and falsehood,
For the good or evil side.”

#10. T or F? “Blay-Miezah’s funeral was held in 1993. It was a modest affair by Ghanaian standards, especially for a man known for his ostentatious displays of wealth. The wake keeping lasted five days.” But “…some people still refused to believe that he was dead.”

TRUE OR FALSE? Read the book! By the way, Yepoka Yeebo is a first-time author and a British-Ghanaian journalist and graduate of Columbia University’s School of Journalism and the University of London. She’s written a fantastic book—and that is true!

Steve N.

a complicated story - well told

Reviewed in the United States on August 30, 2024

The review printed here by Big Bad John is worth reading. I had a similar problem with this generally well-written book.
The author does a fine job telling the complex and astounding story of how so many people were lured into a preposterous scheme. I was particularly interested in the part of the story that takes place in Philadelphia. I enjoy reading books relating to my hometown even though most of them fit squarely into the true crime genre....
I was cruising along, intrigued by the tale and appreciating the excellent writing, when I got to the part where the author mentions that African-Americans in Philly had good reason to distrust local authorities in the late 1980s, due to the tragic 1985 confrontation between the city and the radical MOVE group that resulted in death and destruction.
That was a reasonable point to make. But she goes on to purportedly tell the Philadelphia/Move story in one deeply flawed paragraph. That story is also complex, and she leaves out many of the most important details. Once I read that paragraph, I had to question whether there might be similar problems with other parts of the book.

Ron Klein

An intriguing true crime story.

Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2024

The author overplayed the repeated theme of white westerners taking advantage of Africans. (No blacks were culpable in anything that took place.) But, if you overlook this, it's an intriguing read about someone who, for decades, got away with an enormous fraud. Time and again, the lies should have come to light and brought down the crook's machinations. How this unfolded and especially, the duration of this embezzlement is an interesting read.

David Freydkin

Crazy how this scam could be so successful

Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2024

I finished and truly enjoyed Anansi's Gold by Yepoka Yeebo. It was a page turner about the notorious scam of John Ackah Blay-Miezah that took place mainly in the seventies and eighties. And how surprisingly successful it was in fooling investors in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Basically, Blay-Miezah was an obscure individual with no qualifications, but he did have a seemingly very charismatic and persuasive personality. A native Ghanian, he began telling people an untrue story of being closely associated with Ghana's first President, Kwame Nkrumah, and that Nkrumah smuggled billions in funds and other riches out of the African country and into Swiss bank accounts. He convinced a substantial number of investors to send him money, which he would use to free up the funding in the Swiss banks and reward the investors with high returns from the alleged funding. However, in reality, he used their funds to finance his lavish lifestyle. And he continued cheating investors for approximately a decade.

Overall, I had a difficult time sympathizing with those who lost funding. They were greedy for wanting to profit at the expense of a poor country as well as very foolish. Some invested six or seven figures with a stranger whom they barely know and without verifying that there was any truth in what he was saying. You really have to wonder about some people.

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