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Anansi's Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World
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About This Book
The astounding, never-before-told story of how an audacious Ghanaian con artist pulled off one of the 20th century's longest-running and most spectacular frauds. When Ghana won its independence from Britain in 1957, it instantly became a target for home-grown opportunists and rapacious Western interests determined to snatch any assets that colonialism hadn't already stripped. A CIA-funded military junta ousted the new nation's inspiring president, Kwame Nkrumah, then falsely accused him of hiding the country's gold overseas. Into this big lie stepped one of history's most charismatic scammers, a con man to rival the trickster god Anansi. Born into poverty in Ghana and trained in the United States, John Ackah Blay-Miezah declared himself custodian of an alleged Nkrumah trust fund worth billions. You, too, could claim a piece--if only you would "invest" in Blay-Miezah's fictitious efforts to release the equally fictitious fund. Over the 1970s and '80s, he and his accomplices―including Ghanaian state officials and Nixon's former attorney general--scammed hundreds of millions of dollars out of thousands of believers. Blay-Miezah lived in luxury, deceiving Philadelphia lawyers, London financiers, and Seoul businessmen alike, all while eluding his FBI pursuers. American prosecutors called his scam "one of the most fascinating--and lucrative--in modern history." In Anansi's Gold , Yepoka Yeebo chases Blay-Miezah's ever-wilder trail and discovers, at long last, what really happened to Ghana's missing wealth. She unfolds a riveting account of Cold War entanglements, international finance, and postcolonial betrayal, revealing how what we call "history" writes itself into being, one lie at a time.
Reviews
"Readers will devour the gripping story of a lie that became a country's founding myth."
"Well-researched and engaging, [Anansi's Gold] draws readers into the intricate web of lies about a trust-fund tall tale that spanned throughout the 1970s and '80s and across the globe."
"Even as she catches readers up in what often reads like a breathless caper, the author takes care to ground them in what matters most: Ghana and its sadly 'fragile' history."
"Blay-Miezah was slick enough to capture the attention of savvy folk, rather than just the conventionally gullible."
"It's all about improvisation, unforced error, unlikely escape."
"eebo's details and research are beyond meticulous, and she spins her central con artist into a charismatic lead."
"Writing about a con as convoluted and extensive as Blay-Miezah's is no easy endeavor, but in Anansi's Gold...Yeebo does a phenomenal job explaining how one lie took on a life of its own, one that still hasn't ended."
"Yeebo's narrative is compelling, some of her postcolonial analysis is debatable."
"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."
"We gain behind-the-scenes access to two coups and insight into the functioning of the state intelligence system that ruled before Ghana's transition to democracy."
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