Anansi's Gold: The man who swindled the world

Product Information

Victims included heads of state, politicians and businessmen. “Those who believe Blay-Miezah a fraud,” the American ambassador to Ghana wrote to Henry Kissinger, “are worried he might just have the money and then they would look extremely foolish.”

The scam was eventually exposed, however, and Blay-Miezah died of apparently natural causes in 1992, while under house arrest. (Only rarely outside of fiction do con artists commit suicide when unmasked.) He was, in his appalling way, an artist, and like all good biographies of artists, Yeebo’s book conveys the uniqueness of his personality while also showing how his art was forged in, and fed the requirements of, the times in which he lived. Most of Yeebo's research seems to have been good, gumshoe detective work. She did the hard work of getting first-hand interviews and pulling out wonderful primary sources. Anansi’s Gold is as gripping as a heist movie, with a sparkling cast and a plot that is stranger than fiction. Yepoka Yeebo tells a tale from another time, but in an era of fake news and too-good-to-be-true cryptocurrency scams, it feels thrillingly contemporary

When Ghana declared independence from Britain in 1957, it immediately became a target for opportunists determined to lay hold of whatever assets colonialism hadn't already stripped. The military ousted the new nation's first president, Kwame Nkrumah, then falsely accused him of stealing the country's gold and hiding it overseas. Investigators on three continents were looking into Blay-Miezah and his American business partner Robert Ellis. And investors were increasingly willing to talk to them. In a courtroom in Philadelphia, those investigations would come together and reveal the true scale of the Oman Ghana Trust Fund. It would be so deeply damaging that by the time the court hearing was over, Blay-Miezah would disavow Ellis. Years earlier, Ellis had gotten Blay-Miezah out of jail, and their friendship had powered one of the largest frauds of the twentieth century. Now, though, it was every con man for himself. The idea that a con man could manipulate history so much surprised me, but it was with help from the U.K. and the U.S. – his stories kept being retold and had such legs. It really breaks my heart that so much of Ghanian history has been obscured or lost and so outlandishly manipulated. The worst of it was in foreign newspapers like the New York Times articles from the 1960s. I was always offended by how lazy they were. Biographers of con-artists are always at a disadvantage, in that it’s nigh-impossible to convey the unique charisma that enables somebody like Blay-Miezah to persuade people to hand over their life savings. But Yeebo does at least plausibly convey how her subject honed his skills. For cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the “Settings & Account” section. If you’d like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial.

Blay-Miezah is a contender for the world’s greatest con artist . . . Ms Yeebo had to dig tenaciously to reveal the full story . . . Anansi’s Gold is a welcome, if belated, addition to the canon on great swindlers In the mid-1970s, a charismatic young Ghanaian named John Blay-Miezah was out and about in London,New York and Philadelphia. This urbane Penn grad, now in his early 30s, had an astonishing tale to tell and an extraordinary deal to offer.

"Unforgettable"

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.” Fabulously entertaining . . . like all good biographies of artists, Yeebo’s book conveys the uniqueness of his personality while also showing how his art was forged in, and fed the requirements of, the times in which he lived