December 1, 2025 • 45 mins
The popular former president of Ghana was once accused of hiding gold from the West African country’s government. But it turns out that he was targeted by an audacious con artist who pulled off one of the 20th century's longest running and most spectacular frauds. Author Yepoka Yeebo tells me the story in her book: Anansi's Gold.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
There are just lots of ways this kind of thing
is attractive and sort of turns on people's like wants me.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor
in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the
podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,
research for my many audio and book projects has taken
me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down
with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,
(00:51):
and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true
crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both
good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the
unpublished details behind their stories. This week on Wicked Words,
the popular former president of Ghana was once accused of
(01:12):
hiding gold from the West African country's government, but it
turns out that he was targeted by an audacious con
artist who pulled off one of the twentieth century's longest
running and most spectacular frauds. Author yupoke Eboat tells me
the story in her book and Nancy's gold. So let's
(01:34):
start with Ghana's positions. So what's the difference economically between
Ghana's position as a colony of Britain and Ghana's position
in independence And maybe just kind of in this time
span where this stuff really starts to happen, does this
independence lift up the lower classes?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
A colony, Ghana was basically being stripped the pops, okay,
and so any infrastructure there was was basically designed around
getting resources from wherever they're being like mined or cut
down to a port where they can be taken away.
Around the time of independence, and this was because Britain
(02:16):
had suffered so much destruction during the Second War and
the economy shaky, the British took out a bunch of
gold that was extensibly garners and promise to like invest
in and this was basically gold used to shore up
the pound. And the idea was that on independence the
government would be able to like take back these investments
(02:37):
that would have appreciated and used this money to build
the country because after being stripped parts and after all
the wars that had occurred to create colonization, after all
the wars against the British and other like colonizing forces
and invading courses. There was very little left, if that
makes any sense. It's really really evocatively about like looking
(03:00):
up and just see how much there was to be built,
seeing like nothing, going all the way up to the horizon,
and realizing what a task it would be to build
a nation. And so and this was one of the
like thornier parts of my research. The story that everybody
was told that was in the papers around independence was
there was a psychash of money that would be coming
(03:21):
to Garner and that would be used to build the nation.
When I went to figure out what exactly had happened
some money, like what was spent on what did it build?
I found a great big, weird question mark. There was
just no reporting on it, and there'd be maybe like
references to it. But then by the time I come around,
(03:42):
like I think people said when I was like a
kid learning about this, was that there was all this
money as independence and it had been fritted away somehow.
But I went looking and it turned out that the
British had taken this money and this like obscure branch
of like colonial administration had invested it so spectacularly horribly
(04:03):
that they lost tens of billions for multiple accounts, and
so even the money that was supposed to build up
this new nation wasn't there. So what really ended up
happening was the first government burd a ton of money
and also went into agreements with lots of different countries
(04:24):
to build stuff. Famously across in Bodaan, which still provides
a whole bunch of power to like not Stanner, but
like neighboring countries, was built in there was this great
big plug of war between actions and the Americans to
build this. It was with situation where in Kruma would
kind of manipulate Cold War tensions to get better results
(04:49):
for Ganner.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
So we're starting with, I mean, just sort of government
maneuvering and already scams to begin with. So why don't
we start with the person who wanted to be president.
Will you tell me a little bit about Kwamie and
how he comes into this sort of from the beginning,
is it from the beginning of independence? Is he somebody
(05:10):
who steps up or do people nominate him or what
is that?
Speaker 2 (05:13):
And what is he like we ended up getting into government?
Was he was just like a vocal figure who got
thrown into jail by the British for agitating too much
while he was in jail, he was voted into a
government and so they had to let him out of
jail the same day. And like fromant power. Before that,
(05:34):
he had been like student and an activist, so he
actually went to university in Pennsylvania. He briefly went to
the University of Pennsylvania as well. He was from like
a very modest background and was considered right and enterprising.
(05:54):
He ultimately found like a way to pay his way
and help and went to university in the United States
and the rich Britain. In this entire time he was
involved in like anti colonial movements. Like the officers he
worked out in London would regularly be like torn up
by the security services and go to the police and
(06:15):
they'd be completely unsurprised to hear that they'd been ransacked.
What was going on? And after studying in London, he
returned to Ghanner and like educating for independence, and also
the attempts to assassinate him began. Well at one point
I tried to count, and I couldn't keep up because
there were so many and I could only go by
(06:37):
what was reported. And several more before he even became
like a known politician, so massively simplify it. By independence,
there's like a coalition of people who would run Gunner's
first government, and he becomes the leader of this. So
he eventually becomes Houston, and he's seeing a figure even
(07:01):
even before he becomes present, because like is that it's
the first one of the first nations in Africa to
become independent, and he is like the figurehead for this.
Whose picture of him on the like time with like
a really fraught article about whether it was even viable
to give these nations that one of their own countries,
(07:22):
And wherever he went people would block to him. So
especially after he became like leader, he like did the
visit to the United States and at one point in
his car was just going from the airport to the
hotel in Chicago, and the streets were absolutely thronged with
people just trying to catch a glimpse of them.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
So we have this country. Is he considered sort of
objectively right now, a good honest politician.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Generally he is known to be like good honest. He
lives very very frugly, like people labiship with gifts, and
I'm interested by him. He's like like when he went
on the tour of the United States, people would give
me these massive, massive dinners. At one point he was like,
I would just make a burger.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
What is the motivation behind assassination attempts on his life?
I mean, what is the main purpose of it? Is
it from other countries or from inside?
Speaker 2 (08:14):
It is from the countries who like initially just didn't
want black people to run their own country because it
was a threat to the way the world worked. It
was a bad message to all the other countries that
were colonized that they could perhaps not be But also
it was from the inside. It was from other people
(08:36):
who wanted to meet other people from the inside who
thought maybe it wasn't time for independence. Like there were
lots of different things going on in the background that
led to people trying to blow him up over the years,
and then yeah, I think this just kind of changed
as time went on. He would as this got worse
(08:57):
and worse, increasingly sort of become bunk good and separated
from people. Especially after one assassination attempt, which horribly harbably
injured a little girl who was by the side of
the road huming and flowers. He famously went to visitor
in hospital and just like sat by her bedside and wept.
I think he was motivated by a number of things,
(09:21):
but the main things seemed to be building Ganna into
a nation that kind of stood on its own, A
very basic thing, and it shouldn't have to be said.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
He's kind of your hero? Is he the best person?
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Do you?
Speaker 1 (09:36):
I sometimes think about that in my books? Who's the
best person really in this book? Is he sort of
the highlight of your book? As far as somebody who
has character and integrity?
Speaker 2 (09:43):
There are few more people, but he's up there. Okay,
rarely because like the whole scam wouldhinge on him not
being a good person, not him not being the best person.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
How long was he president and what did he accomplish?
And however much time that was.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
So he went into power in nineteen fifty seven, and
then in nineteen sixty Gana became a republic and he
became presidant and the queu was in nineteen sixty six.
So this is a very short period of time, Like
it's not enough time to build an entire nation.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
But he made progress, I'm assuming was he what.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Was he doing? He made pretty spectacular progress. There were
huge infrastructure projects like Yukosimbdam. There were like roads, there
were ports, those electricity spreading in a grid around the nation,
and there were like lots and lots of other projects
that would become iconic because as soon as the coup happened,
(10:37):
they kind of failed, like huge factories that would like
fallow for bees and years after that feel kind of
like a testament to how much he was able to
do and how much hinged on being runned by a
leader who had the best interest in the nation at heart,
rather than by people who just wanted to be in charge.
(10:59):
I guess that's the nice Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
What were the resources in Ghana? I mean we hear
about Ukraine and their minerals and you know, China holding
back on certain minerals and stuff. What were the is
it diamonds? What was Ghana's resource that was so important?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Chana used to be called the Gold Coast, huge ancient
historic stores of gold and master minds diamonds. Aluminium was
a huge one. There was oil as well, and then
lots of other natural resources like timber and very very
vercile arable land you could grow stuff on, so gigantic
(11:37):
plantations and stuff like that. Yeah, it's a very vital
country in a way that can become like us.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
You go from being a colony of Britain, where basically
the British are taking advantage of these resources, to then
becoming a republic and having all kinds of unscrupulous people.
Except ironically, the president saw me. So tell me kind
of step by step what happens. It sounds like, so
you said, nineteen sixty is when he became president, Is
(12:08):
that right?
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Yeah? Before that he was like prime minister.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Okay, So he was president between sixty nineteen sixty and
nineteen sixty six when the coup happened, right, Yeah, And
he's making lots of progress. People are trying to kill him.
It's not working. Inexplicably, you would think one of those
would work, And so at some point it sounds like
somebody is figuring out that there has to be another
way to get rid of him.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
There are like spectacular numbers of attempts to get rid
of him. It's kind of like all the stories about
how they were trying to kill Castro. Yeah, just like
Danny's scheme. During this period as well, there was a
lot of economic instability, especially during the second part of
the period, because it costs a lot of money to
build a country for nothing, and so that helped sort
(12:53):
of stoke whats of sentiment against him, and so all
the attempts to undermine him and kill him come by,
and with rising instability in the sentiment kind of led
to untenable amount of attempts to kill him. And so
he put in place laws that were designed to lock
away the people who were undermining him and attempting to
(13:14):
kill him. And a lot of these people were people
in government, and a lot a few of these people
were very very prominent members of not just members of
the government, but like founding fathers of Garner. And he
also ended up tearing a lot of people in jail
for straight up corruption. These would be the people who
would like line up around John Appleboy Mazer and legitimize
(13:40):
these plains about ing Kruma.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
So we have all of these sort of political opponents
or people who he thought were on his side, and
he's having to jail them. What is the next step
to actually kicking him out of office? I know that
you had mentioned that there was a sconding of gold,
lots of gold right at what the tire is what
happens next. Essentially, once he's arrested all of these people,
(14:05):
it starts to.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Get more and more unstable mild attempts until there is
this coup. There's not really absconding of gold. That kind
of factors in a bit later, but it's mostly just
there's like a coalition of like police officers and military
officers who were backed by the CIA, who staged this credator.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Tell me about that. What does the CIA have anything
to do with any of it?
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Obviously America is a global power that doesn't love being
constantly pitted against the East. Obviously this is during the
Cold War and in Kuma was not really a communist,
but he had socialist ideas that made it easy to
(14:51):
say that he was. And so there were increasing fears
that he would basically turn Africa red.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
But he's never said that. I mean he's socialist leanings.
Did he have that people knew publicly where they started
really thinking communist like.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
He was like in his youth a member of a
communist platty.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
No would do it, but he but he this was
not something that he you know, was subscribing to as
an adult and certainly as a politician.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
No, his main thing about like regional powers, was building
Africa into like one big block of regional power, and
he basically lean towards like the East when they could
provide like resources and expertise and also just could be
played against the Americans to get a better deal when
(15:41):
like building infrastructure, that kind of thing, okay, and so
like that didn't stop concerns about it. And there's like
a spectacular quote that I will pull up when I
have a second Eisenhower quote about how dangerous they considered
in Krima to be.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
I'm just wondering when they say commune in the east,
are we talking about China? Who was Ghana's biggest sort
of supporter backup plan.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
We're talking about Russia. We're talking about China, and we're
talking about East Germany as well, basically like the entire
Soviet Union, and like when the Kudota happened, Kremer was
actually on his way to China. So he was encouraging
investment from and ex that's from like basically the entire
(16:28):
fosside of the talent war.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
So was this was this a trend for him? He
just thought they were a great resource or did this
just pop up in the last few years had already happened.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Okay, Like this was a trend, and so there was.
There were also lots of connections, like lots of people
would go to the Union to like go to school,
and so there are a lot of like connections between
those countries and Ghana to begin with. And he just
didn't discourage them.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
And I think that was enough to get the CIA involved,
right and.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
To get like them concerned. And this is like layered
over the general like he is left okay, it is
like he is trying to free like a nation that
was colonized.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Tell me about the coup. This is a military right operation.
What actually happened, like physically, what happens when this happens.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
I didn't know where to begin. There are spectacular pictures
of his offices being ransacked. President in Krima's statue being
torn down. His family wakes up to a commotion and
like they find out there's been a Q data they
have to leave their homes immediately. There is basically a
(17:47):
spectacular amount of chaos and planets considering that President Krima
was not actually physically like in Ghana and no, it's
over immediately after a handful of the people that got
(18:08):
shown in jail by in Cremer's administration give bess conferences
where they say that the president and Krimer had like
gold toilets and a home in every African capital, the
girlfriend in every port. They say he stole millions upon
(18:30):
millions from Gada and like hid it away. There was
always like a fuscl amount of stuff being said about
how in Cremer lived, considering everybody was pretty aware that
he lived simply. But the important thing is that like
once everything filtered down to like New York Times or
Jet magazine, it was just stories about how he's got
(18:53):
He brought his girlfriend a Ford bun bird and had
gold taps in his house and was living ludshly. The
people have Ghana stuff.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
So he was framed as corrupt. So this was a
justified coup. And then you have the military installed right
for leading the country. How do you then pivot from
this man? Who where is he living now? What did
he end up doing?
Speaker 2 (19:16):
So he eventually moves to Guinea. He's like honorary co
president of Skinny and he lives in this old house.
By the sequel, they were silly and it's got a
really like a leaky roof, yes, and move his bed
when it rains. He's insisting on like sardine sent by
(19:38):
his former secretary from London.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Where's his wife?
Speaker 2 (19:41):
His wife who was addition and his children with her.
He has other children as well. They go to eat
back to Egypt where she's from, and they have that's
for a few is.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yeah, are they divorced or is this just stay you
need to stay safe? Yeah, Okay, that's sad.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
He basically just has like a couple of loyal people
around him, like like his bodyguards, like one of his nephews.
People constantly go to visit him. However, and he writes
extensively and does like radio broadcasts.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
He has to be denying everything.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
He actually doesn't really address it was radio broadcasting more
about the same stuff he wrote about like the entire time,
like while he was an activist, while he was a politician.
He wrote about liberating Africa. He wrote about how foreign
companies sort of persisted in colonizing Africa as like colonizing
(20:41):
countries dropped off, and how like resources were still being
extracted in very obvious ways, and about what would have
to happen for people to be like truly liberated he was.
He seemed unconcerned about what was said about him and
more concerned about the mission.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Sounds like a civil rights leader. Frankly, yeah, yeah, yeahah,
tell me how we pivot then too, this scam, How
does this work? That involves you know, the bulk of
your book, which is the gold part of this. So
what is his involvement with all of the scam?
Speaker 2 (21:18):
So that's the thing. The scam doesn't really exist until
he dies in nineteen seventy two. Okay, it basically can't
exist until he dies. In nineteen seventy two, he had
been diagnosed with cancer, and so he traveled to Romania
for treatment. That's w that's where he died. Probably also
important to say that, like you lived very modestly, he
(21:39):
had a very modest swill. It's basically just like the
royalties from his books going to his family, that kind
of thing. The news of the death, like traveling around
the world, is what slugs the first iteration of this scam,
and say in Philadelphia, John Akawaymeser has been jailed or
(21:59):
deslotting an innkeeper. He basically ran the same thing in
a bunch of country years before he got to Billy.
But he would check into a hotel, live it up,
instruct the hotel to build the local Guardian embassy, like
he'd be like a doctor working for the UN, or
he'd be like another kind of politician, and then he'd
(22:21):
like to skip out. The hotel would attempt to build
a Guardian embassy and they'd be like, re check on
ID what we're talking about. And so he had done this,
he'd like checked into the Belvy Shafford hotel, had a
great time, run up a substantial bill, and when the
hotel tried to build the embassy in Washington, they were like,
(22:43):
this is not someone working for us.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
How many times did he do this scam?
Speaker 2 (22:47):
I found thee examples of this, but there were stories
about him doing it more frequently, like there were cables
between American posts around Africa being like aware this man,
this scan is happening. The Guardian Anthroplomatic service also had
to send a warning out like if this man attempts
(23:09):
to build your mission, he's do not indulge him. He's
been doing this everywhere. So he did it a bunch
of times. And then when in Kromer died, John Ackablamasus
saw his opportunity and he told like a prison chaplain
that he had been really tight with Kroumer, And he
(23:35):
tells like parallel stories. The most important one is that
he was a nephew or confidant of President In Kromer
m and In Kromer had on his deathbed told him
this great secret and given him this great responsibility. And
(24:00):
the secret was that he had indeed like hidden away
all this money, gold, diamonds, prescious things in so spanks,
and that he had not been stealing these resources. He
had been saving them for the people who had been
trying to kill him like all along, all the people
he knew with stage a Coudeton on seat him, and
(24:24):
that it was responsibility to get this money and return
it to the people of Donner. And in the meantime,
this is money scold diamonds had been invested so well
that they were like massively increasing in value all the time.
And so by the time it was through, he would
(24:46):
have enough to return like the lion share to the
people of Donner. But then what was left he could
use to reward the people who had helped him get through,
like the administrator pops of getting the money out so
he could reward them with like returns like ten to one?
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Is this a Ponzi scheme? Is that how you would
describe this, where he's probably paying some people back but
then taking money and paying them back with that money,
or yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
He like I can only find like a handful of
examples when people have gotten the money back, and it
was usually because they'd made a colossal fuff one investor
in that he just sat in the offices and refused
to leave until he got his money back.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Good for him.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
An there was like an older lady from Philly who
said that Robert Ellis was the man you had become.
Blomzer's like collaborator had treated her like a like a grandmother,
where she wasn't being treated by her actual family. So
she put her life savings in and obviously never got
her return and she got her money back. I think
(25:48):
maybe else did have a saucepot for her.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
What kind of money are we talking about ultimately? And
how long does this scam last?
Speaker 2 (25:56):
This scam starts in Erneston nineteen seventy four, and basically
I would say fizzles in nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Oh my god, fourteen years.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Yeah. When I was reshoting the book, there were still
people pulling versions of the same scam, not like the
structure of the scam, the actual Saan scam. Well. Yeah,
and to this day people will debate whether or not
Blaemas's claims were true.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
But there have to be actual investigators who have looked
into this. And this is millions I'm assuming what was
the total take in?
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Do you know? It was impossible to come up with
a total just because the scam was spread al over
the world. They were investors in the UK and Germany
and Japan, South Korea. But when it was investigated in
Philadelphia in the nineteen eighties, they've found three hundred million
dollars have been put in. Yeah, and they found dozens
(26:54):
and dozens of people who had invested.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
What sort of proof was offered to these people from
blame Meser? I mean, are their contracts? Did these show photos?
Did he have photos of golden diamonds? I mean, how
do you prove any of this if you are this camera?
Speaker 2 (27:12):
There was sort of layer legitimacy. One was that blame
Maser presented himself as wildly diplomat like, he dressed fantastically,
he lives also very lavishly. He was basically a legitimate
(27:33):
businessman who had just come upon this mission by dint
of his association with a cryner. Yeah, an actual job.
He was department businessman. And then he surrounded himself with
lots of people who had worked with President and Creamer,
and these were primarily the people who had been jailed
by Increma for corruption and who had held those press conferences,
(27:59):
being that in criminal was obviously corrupt. But he surrounded
himself with elder statesmen who were not ning Krima and
made the whole thing looking legitimate. And then he managed
to covin a Swiss banker to write a letter. And
the way the letter was praised was so ambiguous that
(28:20):
it made it seem like this was proof that the
money was actually there. What the banker later said he
meant to say was that we would be willing to
have you as a customer of this bank and hold
this amount of money. But yeah, the way it was
raised was ambiguous that when that letter got turned around,
it was you knows proof And the banker like later
(28:41):
talked to an investigators and that he regretted wting that
letter and kept coming back to haunt him. And the
final stage proof which any of few like investors actually
saw was there was a trust document and over these
there were like several different versions of this, but it
was basically like supposed to be the document establishing the trust,
(29:05):
and it was supposed to be written by Kwame and Crima,
and it was on like official letterhead and it looked
fairly in Egypt initially, but then it misspelled the name
of one of his children. It listed another child who
hadn't been born by the date on the document. You
also misspelled the names of like multiple African leaders that
(29:27):
the Crimer was actually very very tight with and if
you don't know much about Donna, probably seemed very legitimate.
And the way it was presented to people, he wouldn't
just like hand out copies of like if you were
in the inner sanctum, you would maybe see it in
a bank volt or somebody would leave a briefcase and
(29:49):
this would be the one document inside it and you'd
like sneak a peek. It was that kind of thing, Okay, Yeah,
it wouldn't be presented to people. People would like come
upon it or see it in setting that made it
seem legitimate.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Did anyone in Ghana invest in this?
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Many people? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (30:07):
No, really yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
The most notable one was this businessman named JK. Skill.
He had built like Ghana's first brewery, which was like
a process. The beer industry was incredibly.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Cutthroat at the time mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
And then like who could buy equipment for breweries, who
could found breweries, who could even buy buy hops, and
so he went through all these groups to like build
this epic brewery, and he had all these other businesses,
and he was like a very well regarded businessman, and
he put so much money into this and into like
propping up by Maser as well. So investors were paying
(30:45):
for the tel suites and the houses and the cars
and the parties and that kind of thing. So they
weren't just giving money, they were like running the whole
organization and paying for way to live really spectacularly this
and inadvertently sort of propping up this dam.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
So how does this all come to ahead? Is it
eighty eight? After fourteen years of this one person. I
know he had associates, but it was really his, his mastermind,
you know that that pulled this off what ends up happening.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
So this entire time, he's been telling not just him,
that his partners as well they've been telling people that
the trust would pay out almost immediately, so they'd be
taught like weeks months at the most, or there's this
specific date, and then the date would roll around and
it wouldn't happen, or and this was a favorite blameasis,
something would happen that would stop it from all like
(31:39):
being completed, so like he'd blamed like government changes or
military unrest, or like the pound isn't great. And then
in the nineteen eighties there were a bunch of incidents
where everybody or the investors would be told to gather
at a hotel like since wand in the Caribbean, and
everybody would turn up and they'd be told like, this
(32:01):
is it. The money is coming, open your accounts, get
ready to like cut it all away. And then there'd
be what seemed like a whole flurry of events to
close it all out, and like huge numbers of bankers
would be rushing from room to room and people would
like see them, and then blade would sort of disappear
and it would all fizzle away and nothing would happen.
And then this just happened again and again and again
(32:23):
like a new like how new groups of people and
at this point, the government of Ganna was by the
nineteen eighties it was a military dictatorship, and this case
ship was sort of propping him up. So they provided
him with like an actual well a kind of diplomatic
passport so he would travel around, but it also legitimized
the claims that he was stuck on up but this
was real. And also the they also had like the
(32:47):
Minister of Finance appearing at these closings, like tossing up
what was owed to each investor and creating these giant ledgers.
And yeah, it just happened over and and over again,
and people started pulling out, others kind of doubled down.
And then in nineteen eighty eight there was a sixteen
(33:10):
minutes segment. One of the investors was friendly, were really
friendly with at Bradley, and so told him about what
was going on. And some of the investors thought that
like this would push blame Maser to finish the hall
up and give them their money, but they'd already tried that.
They'd like helped with the prosecution of Blamemaser's partner in
Philadelphia and he had been sent to jail, but they
(33:32):
also turned up to wave him off to jail. So
there was this sixteen minute segment which is still available
on the internet, and it's worth with the up blay
Bezer in his finery as a chief because at this
point they had paid to make him a chief holding
court in this like mansion in Saint John's Wood in
(33:53):
London on like a gold dance reproduction chair. At this
point the government of gone I told him not to
tell the in Creamis story and so he was like
dodging around, like where did this money come from? What
is it for? That kind of thing. But essentially the
second revealed that like when he was supposed to be
buying Creamo's dead side when he was dying, he was
(34:13):
actually in Ingridge for prison. It revealed how many people
were invested in this, and at this point it included
like President Nixon's former Attorney general like John Mitchell. It
made everybody involved look bad and it also made the
becomement of Ghana look incredibly bad. There was a police
officer who had been sent to keep an eye on
(34:35):
Blainaser and he was also the carrier of the diplomatic passport,
so it was never supposed to go into Blamaser's hand,
and he had after a what kind of like disappeared
and nobody was sure what was going on with him,
and then he popped up in the sixteen minutes episode
and it looked like he was working for Blameaser. So yeah,
it made everybody involved look not great. Everybody saw it
(34:56):
tapes a bit like host seed immediately, so it was
like seeing Ghana. It was seeing all over the world.
Pretty immediately, the government of Ghana called blames at home
and put him on house arrest.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
But this is the same government who was funding this.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Also, he was like popping him up and legitimizing his
quaims as well. Not so much funny because that was
still the investors. But yeah, and it was also like
in the background, the government was transitioning, and so it
was Goodhana was going to become a democracy again. That
was going to be like elections. So at the same time,
(35:31):
there was this process of like rehabilitating President in Krumer's
image and addressing the claims about him. And so his body,
which had been buried in his village was he was
given like a proper state funeral, which hadn't happened. He'd
just been repatriated and buried in this village and this
great big mausoleum was built in Akra and having Blame's
(35:55):
telling this story about Ko being a massacret just didn't
without anymore.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
So Blameser is not in prison or did not go
to prison. I'm assuming was there even a trial.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
There was finally a grandeuri convened in the States, actually
in I think nineteen nineteen two, they moved to extradite
him and when they sent word to Gunner, they found
out that he had just died. Blameser died in these
(36:30):
really weird circumstances because even now people have conflicting stories
about how he died, Like some people swear that he
was in Germany getting treatment. Some people swear that he
was cryogenically frozen so that when it came time to
get hold of the money, he could be revived to
do that. A top to a You had been a
reporter at the time, and the media were called to
(36:52):
like Blames's house and told him was very ill and
he needed to leave the country urgently. For years. Like
after he was gotten house rest, Blames tried to like
lead done and he's what he could finish uself and
give everybody his money and apparently that didn't work out. Yeah,
So there were Carto's house and told he was very ill,
but they didn't actually see him at any point, just
people just kick coming out of his room and saying
(37:13):
like he was having massive palpitations. His health was like
a resk. He needed to leave, and after the best
part of the day they left, and then the news
spread that he had died.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Were how old was he? He would have been in
his late fifties in ninety two.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Yeah, I should double check that, but yeah, do.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
You believe he was dead?
Speaker 2 (37:32):
I found evidence that he was said to have died, So,
like I saw the video as his funeral, there was
definitely a body. It was odd, Like the reporter I
expelled to he was like, it was just weird, Like
why wouldn't they allow us see him? And he was like,
you can. You can fake a death. And also just
the fact that a lot of people close to him
(37:52):
had conflicting stories of what had happened. Yeah, and so
while all the evidence apparently points to him having a
lot of people, do not think that was the case?
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Where was all of his money?
Speaker 2 (38:04):
That's the other thing nobody knows, He like asked one
of his closest friends at that point, a man who
in London who had worked with him and flowed him
around the world, like taking video and audio and running
his like technology for him. When he was called back
to Ganner in nineteen eighty eight, he was like, should
(38:25):
I just go to Brazil and tied out. The man
was a true believer, and he's like, no, just go
to GNA and tell them the truth about this and
they will understand. And then finally like bring this all
to a head and give everybody their money. That's the
other thing. Yeah, a lot of good people I spoke
to who had known him directly or worked with him.
We're all still believers in one way or another.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Even though it's proved that he was not by the
President's bedside when he died. Yeah, I mean his story
doesn't match. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Yeah. Some people were like, that's just the way he
had to frame it to get people to understand. Some
people were like, Bradley is lying and that wasn't what
had happened.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
And you still think they're scams, the exact same scam happening.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Yeah. I think the most one taking version that I
came across was that somebody was still targeting people who
had been investors, and obviously they're like older at this point.
And I spoke to someone who dad had been an investor,
who was like they playing him while he was still
in the hospital, and he was lying in his hospital
there like being ranged for money, and he kept putting
(39:32):
money into this like years and years and years and
years after and to the point that when I was
doing this research, it's still still a thing. And yeah,
like every song from the sixty minutes clip will go
viral again in Ghana and people will start debating whether
or not blayemas it was a conman, and whether or
not the story he told about in crime industry.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
To wrap this up, I mean, I think we want
to bring it back to the victims because I think
Blair his point of view is very clear. He wanted
the money. He obviously knew how to scam people. I mean,
the motivation is not, to me, very mysterious.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
And also like when the upside is significant at certain point,
it's like the downside is I lose everything I put in,
but the upside is so ridiculously good, Yeah, that it
kind of carries the whole thing. And one of the
investigators I spoke to said that in the nineteen eighties
there were lots and lots of schemes like this that
(40:29):
actually paid off, Like they paid out, people got their
money back, and it was usually someone wandering money with
a ridiculous story to justify it. Well, there was like
a reason this money would actually turn up, but it
was at a time where financial resgulation was sort of
up in the air and everything's going a bit crazy.
Sometimes it worked out well.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
I mean it's like, you know, buy a lottery ticket
or go to Vegas, except you're dealing with tens of
thousands and hundreds of thousands and maybe millions of dollars
with people. I, as a person suching this decades later,
had like countless moments where I was.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Like fucked in like this story, the absolutely head exploding
feeling that I got when I was like this kind
is a rich country. Why are the people or where
did all this money go? Yeah, this is this was
like an easy It's like it's bangfault somewhere, Like it
is available, it will come back, people will be saved.
(41:27):
That is incredibly attractive and also just other aspects of
the drama, the international intrigue, like a lot of the
excitement suck you in. I know it's sucked a lot
of the investors in as well. There are just lots
of ways in which this kind of thing is attractive
and sort of terms on people's like wants to me
(41:50):
the point, But like even today there are takers, and
even today there are people debating the story. Even today
it's being like written into history.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Yeah, I hear this sometimes with the Bernie Madoff story,
where it's like, I'm really gonna feel sorry for someone
who has the money to invest two million getting ripped
off is getting ripped off. I don't care how much
money you have. But we are also, in your case
in this story talking about like little old ladies. You're
talking about people who had just such little money that
(42:20):
they were really hoping for the big payoffs. So you've
got two different kinds of investors. You've got the ones
who are naive and don't know and just want a
better life and are rolling the dice on this, and
then you've got the people who should have known better
and they have the millions and they still do it.
And whether that's greed or wanting to be savvy or
being in on an investment that's exclusive. Who knows but
(42:42):
I mean I feel badly for everybody.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Yeah that were definitely like investors who were like, I
just consider this it's like a wildcat. Well it like
it might pay off, it might not, it guess. And
then there are other people who's like life plans hinged
on getting this money.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
Yeah, it wasn't just invested.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
There are lots of people who like to blame Eier,
Like it looked like a legitimate organization. It had offices
full of people, and his office manager will doing the
actual like admin work, like the people recording his like
investor meetings. Like all of those people put like labor,
and they put time in, and they put money in,
and lots of those people like lost all of that.
(43:19):
They were never going to get that back. People in
the end were lost using their houses, their families stopped
talking to them. They put a lot into this because
it seemed so legit and it seemed like the upside
would excuse all the neglecting of their families and like
traveling around the world that they were doing. And the
fact that they just wasn't one pretty devastating.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
If you love historical true crime stories, check out the
audio versions of my books. The Sinner's All about the
Ghost Club, all that is Wicked and American Shrilock, and
don't forget. There are twelve seasons of my historical true
crime podcast, tenfold More Wicked right here in this podcast feed,
scroll back and give them a listen if you haven't already.
(44:10):
This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer
is Alexis Amrosi. Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This
episode was mixed by John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer.
Artwork by Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen
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(44:32):
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Speaker 2 (00:13):
There are just lots of ways this kind of thing
is attractive and sort of turns on people's like wants me.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor
in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the
podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,
research for my many audio and book projects has taken
me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down
with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,
(00:51):
and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true
crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both
good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the
unpublished details behind their stories. This week on Wicked Words,
the popular former president of Ghana was once accused of
(01:12):
hiding gold from the West African country's government, but it
turns out that he was targeted by an audacious con
artist who pulled off one of the twentieth century's longest
running and most spectacular frauds. Author yupoke Eboat tells me
the story in her book and Nancy's gold. So let's
(01:34):
start with Ghana's positions. So what's the difference economically between
Ghana's position as a colony of Britain and Ghana's position
in independence And maybe just kind of in this time
span where this stuff really starts to happen, does this
independence lift up the lower classes?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
A colony, Ghana was basically being stripped the pops, okay,
and so any infrastructure there was was basically designed around
getting resources from wherever they're being like mined or cut
down to a port where they can be taken away.
Around the time of independence, and this was because Britain
(02:16):
had suffered so much destruction during the Second War and
the economy shaky, the British took out a bunch of
gold that was extensibly garners and promise to like invest
in and this was basically gold used to shore up
the pound. And the idea was that on independence the
government would be able to like take back these investments
(02:37):
that would have appreciated and used this money to build
the country because after being stripped parts and after all
the wars that had occurred to create colonization, after all
the wars against the British and other like colonizing forces
and invading courses. There was very little left, if that
makes any sense. It's really really evocatively about like looking
(03:00):
up and just see how much there was to be built,
seeing like nothing, going all the way up to the horizon,
and realizing what a task it would be to build
a nation. And so and this was one of the
like thornier parts of my research. The story that everybody
was told that was in the papers around independence was
there was a psychash of money that would be coming
(03:21):
to Garner and that would be used to build the nation.
When I went to figure out what exactly had happened
some money, like what was spent on what did it build?
I found a great big, weird question mark. There was
just no reporting on it, and there'd be maybe like
references to it. But then by the time I come around,
(03:42):
like I think people said when I was like a
kid learning about this, was that there was all this
money as independence and it had been fritted away somehow.
But I went looking and it turned out that the
British had taken this money and this like obscure branch
of like colonial administration had invested it so spectacularly horribly
(04:03):
that they lost tens of billions for multiple accounts, and
so even the money that was supposed to build up
this new nation wasn't there. So what really ended up
happening was the first government burd a ton of money
and also went into agreements with lots of different countries
(04:24):
to build stuff. Famously across in Bodaan, which still provides
a whole bunch of power to like not Stanner, but
like neighboring countries, was built in there was this great
big plug of war between actions and the Americans to
build this. It was with situation where in Kruma would
kind of manipulate Cold War tensions to get better results
(04:49):
for Ganner.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
So we're starting with, I mean, just sort of government
maneuvering and already scams to begin with. So why don't
we start with the person who wanted to be president.
Will you tell me a little bit about Kwamie and
how he comes into this sort of from the beginning,
is it from the beginning of independence? Is he somebody
(05:10):
who steps up or do people nominate him or what
is that?
Speaker 2 (05:13):
And what is he like we ended up getting into government?
Was he was just like a vocal figure who got
thrown into jail by the British for agitating too much
while he was in jail, he was voted into a
government and so they had to let him out of
jail the same day. And like fromant power. Before that,
(05:34):
he had been like student and an activist, so he
actually went to university in Pennsylvania. He briefly went to
the University of Pennsylvania as well. He was from like
a very modest background and was considered right and enterprising.
(05:54):
He ultimately found like a way to pay his way
and help and went to university in the United States
and the rich Britain. In this entire time he was
involved in like anti colonial movements. Like the officers he
worked out in London would regularly be like torn up
by the security services and go to the police and
(06:15):
they'd be completely unsurprised to hear that they'd been ransacked.
What was going on? And after studying in London, he
returned to Ghanner and like educating for independence, and also
the attempts to assassinate him began. Well at one point
I tried to count, and I couldn't keep up because
there were so many and I could only go by
(06:37):
what was reported. And several more before he even became
like a known politician, so massively simplify it. By independence,
there's like a coalition of people who would run Gunner's
first government, and he becomes the leader of this. So
he eventually becomes Houston, and he's seeing a figure even
(07:01):
even before he becomes present, because like is that it's
the first one of the first nations in Africa to
become independent, and he is like the figurehead for this.
Whose picture of him on the like time with like
a really fraught article about whether it was even viable
to give these nations that one of their own countries,
(07:22):
And wherever he went people would block to him. So
especially after he became like leader, he like did the
visit to the United States and at one point in
his car was just going from the airport to the
hotel in Chicago, and the streets were absolutely thronged with
people just trying to catch a glimpse of them.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
So we have this country. Is he considered sort of
objectively right now, a good honest politician.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Generally he is known to be like good honest. He
lives very very frugly, like people labiship with gifts, and
I'm interested by him. He's like like when he went
on the tour of the United States, people would give
me these massive, massive dinners. At one point he was like,
I would just make a burger.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
What is the motivation behind assassination attempts on his life?
I mean, what is the main purpose of it? Is
it from other countries or from inside?
Speaker 2 (08:14):
It is from the countries who like initially just didn't
want black people to run their own country because it
was a threat to the way the world worked. It
was a bad message to all the other countries that
were colonized that they could perhaps not be But also
it was from the inside. It was from other people
(08:36):
who wanted to meet other people from the inside who
thought maybe it wasn't time for independence. Like there were
lots of different things going on in the background that
led to people trying to blow him up over the years,
and then yeah, I think this just kind of changed
as time went on. He would as this got worse
(08:57):
and worse, increasingly sort of become bunk good and separated
from people. Especially after one assassination attempt, which horribly harbably
injured a little girl who was by the side of
the road huming and flowers. He famously went to visitor
in hospital and just like sat by her bedside and wept.
I think he was motivated by a number of things,
(09:21):
but the main things seemed to be building Ganna into
a nation that kind of stood on its own, A
very basic thing, and it shouldn't have to be said.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
He's kind of your hero? Is he the best person?
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Do you?
Speaker 1 (09:36):
I sometimes think about that in my books? Who's the
best person really in this book? Is he sort of
the highlight of your book? As far as somebody who
has character and integrity?
Speaker 2 (09:43):
There are few more people, but he's up there. Okay,
rarely because like the whole scam wouldhinge on him not
being a good person, not him not being the best person.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
How long was he president and what did he accomplish?
And however much time that was.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
So he went into power in nineteen fifty seven, and
then in nineteen sixty Gana became a republic and he
became presidant and the queu was in nineteen sixty six.
So this is a very short period of time, Like
it's not enough time to build an entire nation.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
But he made progress, I'm assuming was he what.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Was he doing? He made pretty spectacular progress. There were
huge infrastructure projects like Yukosimbdam. There were like roads, there
were ports, those electricity spreading in a grid around the nation,
and there were like lots and lots of other projects
that would become iconic because as soon as the coup happened,
(10:37):
they kind of failed, like huge factories that would like
fallow for bees and years after that feel kind of
like a testament to how much he was able to
do and how much hinged on being runned by a
leader who had the best interest in the nation at heart,
rather than by people who just wanted to be in charge.
(10:59):
I guess that's the nice Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
What were the resources in Ghana? I mean we hear
about Ukraine and their minerals and you know, China holding
back on certain minerals and stuff. What were the is
it diamonds? What was Ghana's resource that was so important?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Chana used to be called the Gold Coast, huge ancient
historic stores of gold and master minds diamonds. Aluminium was
a huge one. There was oil as well, and then
lots of other natural resources like timber and very very
vercile arable land you could grow stuff on, so gigantic
(11:37):
plantations and stuff like that. Yeah, it's a very vital
country in a way that can become like us.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
You go from being a colony of Britain, where basically
the British are taking advantage of these resources, to then
becoming a republic and having all kinds of unscrupulous people.
Except ironically, the president saw me. So tell me kind
of step by step what happens. It sounds like, so
you said, nineteen sixty is when he became president, Is
(12:08):
that right?
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Yeah? Before that he was like prime minister.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Okay, So he was president between sixty nineteen sixty and
nineteen sixty six when the coup happened, right, Yeah, And
he's making lots of progress. People are trying to kill him.
It's not working. Inexplicably, you would think one of those
would work, And so at some point it sounds like
somebody is figuring out that there has to be another
way to get rid of him.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
There are like spectacular numbers of attempts to get rid
of him. It's kind of like all the stories about
how they were trying to kill Castro. Yeah, just like
Danny's scheme. During this period as well, there was a
lot of economic instability, especially during the second part of
the period, because it costs a lot of money to
build a country for nothing, and so that helped sort
(12:53):
of stoke whats of sentiment against him, and so all
the attempts to undermine him and kill him come by,
and with rising instability in the sentiment kind of led
to untenable amount of attempts to kill him. And so
he put in place laws that were designed to lock
away the people who were undermining him and attempting to
(13:14):
kill him. And a lot of these people were people
in government, and a lot a few of these people
were very very prominent members of not just members of
the government, but like founding fathers of Garner. And he
also ended up tearing a lot of people in jail
for straight up corruption. These would be the people who
would like line up around John Appleboy Mazer and legitimize
(13:40):
these plains about ing Kruma.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
So we have all of these sort of political opponents
or people who he thought were on his side, and
he's having to jail them. What is the next step
to actually kicking him out of office? I know that
you had mentioned that there was a sconding of gold,
lots of gold right at what the tire is what
happens next. Essentially, once he's arrested all of these people,
(14:05):
it starts to.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Get more and more unstable mild attempts until there is
this coup. There's not really absconding of gold. That kind
of factors in a bit later, but it's mostly just
there's like a coalition of like police officers and military
officers who were backed by the CIA, who staged this credator.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Tell me about that. What does the CIA have anything
to do with any of it?
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Obviously America is a global power that doesn't love being
constantly pitted against the East. Obviously this is during the
Cold War and in Kuma was not really a communist,
but he had socialist ideas that made it easy to
(14:51):
say that he was. And so there were increasing fears
that he would basically turn Africa red.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
But he's never said that. I mean he's socialist leanings.
Did he have that people knew publicly where they started
really thinking communist like.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
He was like in his youth a member of a
communist platty.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
No would do it, but he but he this was
not something that he you know, was subscribing to as
an adult and certainly as a politician.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
No, his main thing about like regional powers, was building
Africa into like one big block of regional power, and
he basically lean towards like the East when they could
provide like resources and expertise and also just could be
played against the Americans to get a better deal when
(15:41):
like building infrastructure, that kind of thing, okay, and so
like that didn't stop concerns about it. And there's like
a spectacular quote that I will pull up when I
have a second Eisenhower quote about how dangerous they considered
in Krima to be.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
I'm just wondering when they say commune in the east,
are we talking about China? Who was Ghana's biggest sort
of supporter backup plan.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
We're talking about Russia. We're talking about China, and we're
talking about East Germany as well, basically like the entire
Soviet Union, and like when the Kudota happened, Kremer was
actually on his way to China. So he was encouraging
investment from and ex that's from like basically the entire
(16:28):
fosside of the talent war.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
So was this was this a trend for him? He
just thought they were a great resource or did this
just pop up in the last few years had already happened.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Okay, Like this was a trend, and so there was.
There were also lots of connections, like lots of people
would go to the Union to like go to school,
and so there are a lot of like connections between
those countries and Ghana to begin with. And he just
didn't discourage them.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
And I think that was enough to get the CIA involved,
right and.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
To get like them concerned. And this is like layered
over the general like he is left okay, it is
like he is trying to free like a nation that
was colonized.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Tell me about the coup. This is a military right operation.
What actually happened, like physically, what happens when this happens.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
I didn't know where to begin. There are spectacular pictures
of his offices being ransacked. President in Krima's statue being
torn down. His family wakes up to a commotion and
like they find out there's been a Q data they
have to leave their homes immediately. There is basically a
(17:47):
spectacular amount of chaos and planets considering that President Krima
was not actually physically like in Ghana and no, it's
over immediately after a handful of the people that got
(18:08):
shown in jail by in Cremer's administration give bess conferences
where they say that the president and Krimer had like
gold toilets and a home in every African capital, the
girlfriend in every port. They say he stole millions upon
(18:30):
millions from Gada and like hid it away. There was
always like a fuscl amount of stuff being said about
how in Cremer lived, considering everybody was pretty aware that
he lived simply. But the important thing is that like
once everything filtered down to like New York Times or
Jet magazine, it was just stories about how he's got
(18:53):
He brought his girlfriend a Ford bun bird and had
gold taps in his house and was living ludshly. The
people have Ghana stuff.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
So he was framed as corrupt. So this was a
justified coup. And then you have the military installed right
for leading the country. How do you then pivot from
this man? Who where is he living now? What did
he end up doing?
Speaker 2 (19:16):
So he eventually moves to Guinea. He's like honorary co
president of Skinny and he lives in this old house.
By the sequel, they were silly and it's got a
really like a leaky roof, yes, and move his bed
when it rains. He's insisting on like sardine sent by
(19:38):
his former secretary from London.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Where's his wife?
Speaker 2 (19:41):
His wife who was addition and his children with her.
He has other children as well. They go to eat
back to Egypt where she's from, and they have that's
for a few is.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yeah, are they divorced or is this just stay you
need to stay safe? Yeah, Okay, that's sad.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
He basically just has like a couple of loyal people
around him, like like his bodyguards, like one of his nephews.
People constantly go to visit him. However, and he writes
extensively and does like radio broadcasts.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
He has to be denying everything.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
He actually doesn't really address it was radio broadcasting more
about the same stuff he wrote about like the entire time,
like while he was an activist, while he was a politician.
He wrote about liberating Africa. He wrote about how foreign
companies sort of persisted in colonizing Africa as like colonizing
(20:41):
countries dropped off, and how like resources were still being
extracted in very obvious ways, and about what would have
to happen for people to be like truly liberated he was.
He seemed unconcerned about what was said about him and
more concerned about the mission.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Sounds like a civil rights leader. Frankly, yeah, yeah, yeahah,
tell me how we pivot then too, this scam, How
does this work? That involves you know, the bulk of
your book, which is the gold part of this. So
what is his involvement with all of the scam?
Speaker 2 (21:18):
So that's the thing. The scam doesn't really exist until
he dies in nineteen seventy two. Okay, it basically can't
exist until he dies. In nineteen seventy two, he had
been diagnosed with cancer, and so he traveled to Romania
for treatment. That's w that's where he died. Probably also
important to say that, like you lived very modestly, he
(21:39):
had a very modest swill. It's basically just like the
royalties from his books going to his family, that kind
of thing. The news of the death, like traveling around
the world, is what slugs the first iteration of this scam,
and say in Philadelphia, John Akawaymeser has been jailed or
(21:59):
deslotting an innkeeper. He basically ran the same thing in
a bunch of country years before he got to Billy.
But he would check into a hotel, live it up,
instruct the hotel to build the local Guardian embassy, like
he'd be like a doctor working for the UN, or
he'd be like another kind of politician, and then he'd
(22:21):
like to skip out. The hotel would attempt to build
a Guardian embassy and they'd be like, re check on
ID what we're talking about. And so he had done this,
he'd like checked into the Belvy Shafford hotel, had a
great time, run up a substantial bill, and when the
hotel tried to build the embassy in Washington, they were like,
(22:43):
this is not someone working for us.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
How many times did he do this scam?
Speaker 2 (22:47):
I found thee examples of this, but there were stories
about him doing it more frequently, like there were cables
between American posts around Africa being like aware this man,
this scan is happening. The Guardian Anthroplomatic service also had
to send a warning out like if this man attempts
(23:09):
to build your mission, he's do not indulge him. He's
been doing this everywhere. So he did it a bunch
of times. And then when in Kromer died, John Ackablamasus
saw his opportunity and he told like a prison chaplain
that he had been really tight with Kroumer, And he
(23:35):
tells like parallel stories. The most important one is that
he was a nephew or confidant of President In Kromer
m and In Kromer had on his deathbed told him
this great secret and given him this great responsibility. And
(24:00):
the secret was that he had indeed like hidden away
all this money, gold, diamonds, prescious things in so spanks,
and that he had not been stealing these resources. He
had been saving them for the people who had been
trying to kill him like all along, all the people
he knew with stage a Coudeton on seat him, and
(24:24):
that it was responsibility to get this money and return
it to the people of Donner. And in the meantime,
this is money scold diamonds had been invested so well
that they were like massively increasing in value all the time.
And so by the time it was through, he would
(24:46):
have enough to return like the lion share to the
people of Donner. But then what was left he could
use to reward the people who had helped him get through,
like the administrator pops of getting the money out so
he could reward them with like returns like ten to one?
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Is this a Ponzi scheme? Is that how you would
describe this, where he's probably paying some people back but
then taking money and paying them back with that money,
or yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
He like I can only find like a handful of
examples when people have gotten the money back, and it
was usually because they'd made a colossal fuff one investor
in that he just sat in the offices and refused
to leave until he got his money back.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Good for him.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
An there was like an older lady from Philly who
said that Robert Ellis was the man you had become.
Blomzer's like collaborator had treated her like a like a grandmother,
where she wasn't being treated by her actual family. So
she put her life savings in and obviously never got
her return and she got her money back. I think
(25:48):
maybe else did have a saucepot for her.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
What kind of money are we talking about ultimately? And
how long does this scam last?
Speaker 2 (25:56):
This scam starts in Erneston nineteen seventy four, and basically
I would say fizzles in nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
Oh my god, fourteen years.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Yeah. When I was reshoting the book, there were still
people pulling versions of the same scam, not like the
structure of the scam, the actual Saan scam. Well. Yeah,
and to this day people will debate whether or not
Blaemas's claims were true.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
But there have to be actual investigators who have looked
into this. And this is millions I'm assuming what was
the total take in?
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Do you know? It was impossible to come up with
a total just because the scam was spread al over
the world. They were investors in the UK and Germany
and Japan, South Korea. But when it was investigated in
Philadelphia in the nineteen eighties, they've found three hundred million
dollars have been put in. Yeah, and they found dozens
(26:54):
and dozens of people who had invested.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
What sort of proof was offered to these people from
blame Meser? I mean, are their contracts? Did these show photos?
Did he have photos of golden diamonds? I mean, how
do you prove any of this if you are this camera?
Speaker 2 (27:12):
There was sort of layer legitimacy. One was that blame
Maser presented himself as wildly diplomat like, he dressed fantastically,
he lives also very lavishly. He was basically a legitimate
(27:33):
businessman who had just come upon this mission by dint
of his association with a cryner. Yeah, an actual job.
He was department businessman. And then he surrounded himself with
lots of people who had worked with President and Creamer,
and these were primarily the people who had been jailed
by Increma for corruption and who had held those press conferences,
(27:59):
being that in criminal was obviously corrupt. But he surrounded
himself with elder statesmen who were not ning Krima and
made the whole thing looking legitimate. And then he managed
to covin a Swiss banker to write a letter. And
the way the letter was praised was so ambiguous that
(28:20):
it made it seem like this was proof that the
money was actually there. What the banker later said he
meant to say was that we would be willing to
have you as a customer of this bank and hold
this amount of money. But yeah, the way it was
raised was ambiguous that when that letter got turned around,
it was you knows proof And the banker like later
(28:41):
talked to an investigators and that he regretted wting that
letter and kept coming back to haunt him. And the
final stage proof which any of few like investors actually
saw was there was a trust document and over these
there were like several different versions of this, but it
was basically like supposed to be the document establishing the trust,
(29:05):
and it was supposed to be written by Kwame and Crima,
and it was on like official letterhead and it looked
fairly in Egypt initially, but then it misspelled the name
of one of his children. It listed another child who
hadn't been born by the date on the document. You
also misspelled the names of like multiple African leaders that
(29:27):
the Crimer was actually very very tight with and if
you don't know much about Donna, probably seemed very legitimate.
And the way it was presented to people, he wouldn't
just like hand out copies of like if you were
in the inner sanctum, you would maybe see it in
a bank volt or somebody would leave a briefcase and
(29:49):
this would be the one document inside it and you'd
like sneak a peek. It was that kind of thing, Okay, Yeah,
it wouldn't be presented to people. People would like come
upon it or see it in setting that made it
seem legitimate.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Did anyone in Ghana invest in this?
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Many people? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (30:07):
No, really yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
The most notable one was this businessman named JK. Skill.
He had built like Ghana's first brewery, which was like
a process. The beer industry was incredibly.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Cutthroat at the time mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
And then like who could buy equipment for breweries, who
could found breweries, who could even buy buy hops, and
so he went through all these groups to like build
this epic brewery, and he had all these other businesses,
and he was like a very well regarded businessman, and
he put so much money into this and into like
propping up by Maser as well. So investors were paying
(30:45):
for the tel suites and the houses and the cars
and the parties and that kind of thing. So they
weren't just giving money, they were like running the whole
organization and paying for way to live really spectacularly this
and inadvertently sort of propping up this dam.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
So how does this all come to ahead? Is it
eighty eight? After fourteen years of this one person. I
know he had associates, but it was really his, his mastermind,
you know that that pulled this off what ends up happening.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
So this entire time, he's been telling not just him,
that his partners as well they've been telling people that
the trust would pay out almost immediately, so they'd be
taught like weeks months at the most, or there's this
specific date, and then the date would roll around and
it wouldn't happen, or and this was a favorite blameasis,
something would happen that would stop it from all like
(31:39):
being completed, so like he'd blamed like government changes or
military unrest, or like the pound isn't great. And then
in the nineteen eighties there were a bunch of incidents
where everybody or the investors would be told to gather
at a hotel like since wand in the Caribbean, and
everybody would turn up and they'd be told like, this
(32:01):
is it. The money is coming, open your accounts, get
ready to like cut it all away. And then there'd
be what seemed like a whole flurry of events to
close it all out, and like huge numbers of bankers
would be rushing from room to room and people would
like see them, and then blade would sort of disappear
and it would all fizzle away and nothing would happen.
And then this just happened again and again and again
(32:23):
like a new like how new groups of people and
at this point, the government of Ganna was by the
nineteen eighties it was a military dictatorship, and this case
ship was sort of propping him up. So they provided
him with like an actual well a kind of diplomatic
passport so he would travel around, but it also legitimized
the claims that he was stuck on up but this
was real. And also the they also had like the
(32:47):
Minister of Finance appearing at these closings, like tossing up
what was owed to each investor and creating these giant ledgers.
And yeah, it just happened over and and over again,
and people started pulling out, others kind of doubled down.
And then in nineteen eighty eight there was a sixteen
(33:10):
minutes segment. One of the investors was friendly, were really
friendly with at Bradley, and so told him about what
was going on. And some of the investors thought that
like this would push blame Maser to finish the hall
up and give them their money, but they'd already tried that.
They'd like helped with the prosecution of Blamemaser's partner in
Philadelphia and he had been sent to jail, but they
(33:32):
also turned up to wave him off to jail. So
there was this sixteen minute segment which is still available
on the internet, and it's worth with the up blay
Bezer in his finery as a chief because at this
point they had paid to make him a chief holding
court in this like mansion in Saint John's Wood in
(33:53):
London on like a gold dance reproduction chair. At this
point the government of gone I told him not to
tell the in Creamis story and so he was like
dodging around, like where did this money come from? What
is it for? That kind of thing. But essentially the
second revealed that like when he was supposed to be
buying Creamo's dead side when he was dying, he was
(34:13):
actually in Ingridge for prison. It revealed how many people
were invested in this, and at this point it included
like President Nixon's former Attorney general like John Mitchell. It
made everybody involved look bad and it also made the
becomement of Ghana look incredibly bad. There was a police
officer who had been sent to keep an eye on
(34:35):
Blainaser and he was also the carrier of the diplomatic passport,
so it was never supposed to go into Blamaser's hand,
and he had after a what kind of like disappeared
and nobody was sure what was going on with him,
and then he popped up in the sixteen minutes episode
and it looked like he was working for Blameaser. So yeah,
it made everybody involved look not great. Everybody saw it
(34:56):
tapes a bit like host seed immediately, so it was
like seeing Ghana. It was seeing all over the world.
Pretty immediately, the government of Ghana called blames at home
and put him on house arrest.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
But this is the same government who was funding this.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Also, he was like popping him up and legitimizing his
quaims as well. Not so much funny because that was
still the investors. But yeah, and it was also like
in the background, the government was transitioning, and so it
was Goodhana was going to become a democracy again. That
was going to be like elections. So at the same time,
(35:31):
there was this process of like rehabilitating President in Krumer's
image and addressing the claims about him. And so his body,
which had been buried in his village was he was
given like a proper state funeral, which hadn't happened. He'd
just been repatriated and buried in this village and this
great big mausoleum was built in Akra and having Blame's
(35:55):
telling this story about Ko being a massacret just didn't
without anymore.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
So Blameser is not in prison or did not go
to prison. I'm assuming was there even a trial.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
There was finally a grandeuri convened in the States, actually
in I think nineteen nineteen two, they moved to extradite
him and when they sent word to Gunner, they found
out that he had just died. Blameser died in these
(36:30):
really weird circumstances because even now people have conflicting stories
about how he died, Like some people swear that he
was in Germany getting treatment. Some people swear that he
was cryogenically frozen so that when it came time to
get hold of the money, he could be revived to
do that. A top to a You had been a
reporter at the time, and the media were called to
(36:52):
like Blames's house and told him was very ill and
he needed to leave the country urgently. For years. Like
after he was gotten house rest, Blames tried to like
lead done and he's what he could finish uself and
give everybody his money and apparently that didn't work out. Yeah,
So there were Carto's house and told he was very ill,
but they didn't actually see him at any point, just
people just kick coming out of his room and saying
(37:13):
like he was having massive palpitations. His health was like
a resk. He needed to leave, and after the best
part of the day they left, and then the news
spread that he had died.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Were how old was he? He would have been in
his late fifties in ninety two.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Yeah, I should double check that, but yeah, do.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
You believe he was dead?
Speaker 2 (37:32):
I found evidence that he was said to have died, So,
like I saw the video as his funeral, there was
definitely a body. It was odd, Like the reporter I
expelled to he was like, it was just weird, Like
why wouldn't they allow us see him? And he was like,
you can. You can fake a death. And also just
the fact that a lot of people close to him
(37:52):
had conflicting stories of what had happened. Yeah, and so
while all the evidence apparently points to him having a
lot of people, do not think that was the case?
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Where was all of his money?
Speaker 2 (38:04):
That's the other thing nobody knows, He like asked one
of his closest friends at that point, a man who
in London who had worked with him and flowed him
around the world, like taking video and audio and running
his like technology for him. When he was called back
to Ganner in nineteen eighty eight, he was like, should
(38:25):
I just go to Brazil and tied out. The man
was a true believer, and he's like, no, just go
to GNA and tell them the truth about this and
they will understand. And then finally like bring this all
to a head and give everybody their money. That's the
other thing. Yeah, a lot of good people I spoke
to who had known him directly or worked with him.
We're all still believers in one way or another.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Even though it's proved that he was not by the
President's bedside when he died. Yeah, I mean his story
doesn't match. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Yeah. Some people were like, that's just the way he
had to frame it to get people to understand. Some
people were like, Bradley is lying and that wasn't what
had happened.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
And you still think they're scams, the exact same scam happening.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Yeah. I think the most one taking version that I
came across was that somebody was still targeting people who
had been investors, and obviously they're like older at this point.
And I spoke to someone who dad had been an investor,
who was like they playing him while he was still
in the hospital, and he was lying in his hospital
there like being ranged for money, and he kept putting
(39:32):
money into this like years and years and years and
years after and to the point that when I was
doing this research, it's still still a thing. And yeah,
like every song from the sixty minutes clip will go
viral again in Ghana and people will start debating whether
or not blayemas it was a conman, and whether or
not the story he told about in crime industry.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
To wrap this up, I mean, I think we want
to bring it back to the victims because I think
Blair his point of view is very clear. He wanted
the money. He obviously knew how to scam people. I mean,
the motivation is not, to me, very mysterious.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
And also like when the upside is significant at certain point,
it's like the downside is I lose everything I put in,
but the upside is so ridiculously good, Yeah, that it
kind of carries the whole thing. And one of the
investigators I spoke to said that in the nineteen eighties
there were lots and lots of schemes like this that
(40:29):
actually paid off, Like they paid out, people got their
money back, and it was usually someone wandering money with
a ridiculous story to justify it. Well, there was like
a reason this money would actually turn up, but it
was at a time where financial resgulation was sort of
up in the air and everything's going a bit crazy.
Sometimes it worked out well.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
I mean it's like, you know, buy a lottery ticket
or go to Vegas, except you're dealing with tens of
thousands and hundreds of thousands and maybe millions of dollars
with people. I, as a person suching this decades later,
had like countless moments where I was.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Like fucked in like this story, the absolutely head exploding
feeling that I got when I was like this kind
is a rich country. Why are the people or where
did all this money go? Yeah, this is this was
like an easy It's like it's bangfault somewhere, Like it
is available, it will come back, people will be saved.
(41:27):
That is incredibly attractive and also just other aspects of
the drama, the international intrigue, like a lot of the
excitement suck you in. I know it's sucked a lot
of the investors in as well. There are just lots
of ways in which this kind of thing is attractive
and sort of terms on people's like wants to me
(41:50):
the point, But like even today there are takers, and
even today there are people debating the story. Even today
it's being like written into history.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Yeah, I hear this sometimes with the Bernie Madoff story,
where it's like, I'm really gonna feel sorry for someone
who has the money to invest two million getting ripped
off is getting ripped off. I don't care how much
money you have. But we are also, in your case
in this story talking about like little old ladies. You're
talking about people who had just such little money that
(42:20):
they were really hoping for the big payoffs. So you've
got two different kinds of investors. You've got the ones
who are naive and don't know and just want a
better life and are rolling the dice on this, and
then you've got the people who should have known better
and they have the millions and they still do it.
And whether that's greed or wanting to be savvy or
being in on an investment that's exclusive. Who knows but
(42:42):
I mean I feel badly for everybody.
Speaker 2 (42:44):
Yeah that were definitely like investors who were like, I
just consider this it's like a wildcat. Well it like
it might pay off, it might not, it guess. And
then there are other people who's like life plans hinged
on getting this money.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
Yeah, it wasn't just invested.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
There are lots of people who like to blame Eier,
Like it looked like a legitimate organization. It had offices
full of people, and his office manager will doing the
actual like admin work, like the people recording his like
investor meetings. Like all of those people put like labor,
and they put time in, and they put money in,
and lots of those people like lost all of that.
(43:19):
They were never going to get that back. People in
the end were lost using their houses, their families stopped
talking to them. They put a lot into this because
it seemed so legit and it seemed like the upside
would excuse all the neglecting of their families and like
traveling around the world that they were doing. And the
fact that they just wasn't one pretty devastating.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
If you love historical true crime stories, check out the
audio versions of my books. The Sinner's All about the
Ghost Club, all that is Wicked and American Shrilock, and
don't forget. There are twelve seasons of my historical true
crime podcast, tenfold More Wicked right here in this podcast feed,
scroll back and give them a listen if you haven't already.
(44:10):
This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer
is Alexis Amrosi. Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This
episode was mixed by John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer.
Artwork by Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen
Kilgariff and Danielle Kramer. Follow Wicked Words on Instagram and
(44:32):
Facebook at tenfold more Wicked and on Twitter at tenfold
More And if you know of a historical crime that
could use some attention from the crew at tenfold more Wicked,
email us at info at Tenfoldmorewicked dot com. We'll also
take your suggestions for true crime authors for Wicked Words
Host
Kate Winkler Dawson
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