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There are just lots of ways this kind of thing is attractive and sort of turns on people's like wants me.

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, 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This is about the choices writers make, both good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the unpublished details behind their stories.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 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 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?

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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 for Ganner.

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 who steps up or do people nominate him or what is that?

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, 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.

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 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 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 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, 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.

So we have this country.

Is he considered sort of objectively right now, a good honest politician.

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.

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?

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 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 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, 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.

He's kind of your hero?

Is he the best person?

Do you?

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?

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.

How long was he president and what did he accomplish?

And however much time that was.

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.

But he made progress, I'm assuming was he what.

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, 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.

I guess that's the nice Yeah.

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?

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 plantations and stuff like that.

Yeah, it's a very vital country in a way that can become like us.

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 that right?

Yeah?

Before that he was like prime minister.

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.

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 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 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 these plains about ing Kruma.

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, it starts to.

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.

Tell me about that.

What does the CIA have anything to do with any of it?

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 say that he was.

And so there were increasing fears that he would basically turn Africa red.

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.

He was like in his youth a member of a communist platty.

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.

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 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.

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.

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 fosside of the talent war.

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.

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.

And I think that was enough to get the CIA involved, right and.

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.

Tell me about the coup.

This is a military right operation.

What actually happened, like physically, what happens when this happens.

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 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 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 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 He brought his girlfriend a Ford bun bird and had gold taps in his house and was living ludshly.

The people have Ghana stuff.

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?

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 his former secretary from London.

Where's his wife?

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.

Yeah, are they divorced or is this just stay you need to stay safe?

Yeah, Okay, that's sad.

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.

He has to be denying everything.

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 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.

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?

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 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 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 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, this is not someone working for us.

How many times did he do this scam?

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 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 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 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 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 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?

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.

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.

Good for him.

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 maybe else did have a saucepot for her.

What kind of money are we talking about ultimately?

And how long does this scam last?

This scam starts in Erneston nineteen seventy four, and basically I would say fizzles in nineteen eighty eight.

Oh my god, fourteen years.

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.

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?

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 and dozens of people who had invested.

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?

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 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, 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 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 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, 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 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 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.

Did anyone in Ghana invest in this?

Many people?

Yeah?

No, really yeah, Yeah.

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.

Cutthroat at the time mm hmm.

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 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.

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.

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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.

But this is the same government who was funding this.

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, 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 telling this story about Ko being a massacret just didn't without anymore.

So Blameser is not in prison or did not go to prison.

I'm assuming was there even a trial.

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 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 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 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.

Were how old was he?

He would have been in his late fifties in ninety two.

Yeah, I should double check that, but yeah, do.

You believe he was dead?

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 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?

Where was all of his money?

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 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.

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.

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.

And you still think they're scams, the exact same scam happening.

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 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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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 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 I mean I feel badly for everybody.

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.

Yeah, it wasn't just invested.

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.

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.

If you love historical true crime stories, check out the audio versions of my books.

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This has been an exactly right production.

Our senior producer is Alexis Amrosi.

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This episode was mixed by John Bradley.

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Artwork by Nick Toga.

Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen Kilgariff and Danielle Kramer.

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