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

Yeebo weaves the far-fetched tale of John Ackah Blay-Miezah, a Ghanaian grifter responsible for a truly massive con. Blay-Miezah claimed that he had sole access to an enormous fortune in gold that Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, had squirreled away while in power. According to Blay-Miezah, Nkrumah shared the details of this treasure with him when the president was on his deathbed—never mind that Blay-Miezah was serving time in a Pennsylvania jail when Nkrumah died. Over several decades, Blay-Miezah convinced dozens of people in Ghana, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States to provide him with the funds he said he needed to access this treasure, promising massive returns for their support. Yeebo makes clear that powerful people protected Blay-Miezah and kept the con going either because the grifter was useful to them or because they did not want to admit that they had been swindled. Blay-Miezah would die in 1992 while under house arrest in Accra; rumors endure to this day that he left an investment fund worth $15 billion. Yeebo uses this outlandish yarn to paint a vivid picture of the early years of post-independence Ghanaian society and government.