Winner of the Plutarch Award Shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize A New York Times New Yorker
Washington Post Newsweek TIME Book of the Year 2023'Fabulously entertaining' Daily Telegraph
'Perfect for fans of Frank Abignale Jr.'s Catch Me If You Can' Publishers WeeklyThe astounding
never-before-told story of how an ingenious Ghanaian con artist ran one of the 20th century's
longest and most audacious frauds.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.Into this story stepped one of history's most charismatic scammers John Ackah
Blay-Miezah - a con man to rival the trickster god Anansi. Born into poverty Blay-Miezah
declared himself the custodian of an alleged Nkrumah trust fund worth billions. You too could
claim a piece if only you would help him rescue it - with a small investment. Over the 1970s
and '80s he grew his scam to epic proportions amassing hundreds of millions of pounds from
thousands of marks all over the world. He baffled Henry Kissinger scandalised Shirley
Temple-Black and had Nixon's former attorney-general at his beck and call. Many tried to stop
him but Blay-Miezah continued to live in luxury protected by ex-SAS soldiers while he
deceived lawyers businessmen and investigators around the globe.In Anansi's Gold Yepoka Yeebo
chases the ever-wilder trail of Blay-Miezah - and unfolds a riveting account of Cold War
entanglements and African dreams - revealing the untold story of the grifter who beat the West
at its own thieving game.
