Yeebo’s engrossing account of the Oman Ghana Trust Fund, a scam conceived by John Ackah Blay-Miezah, begins with a detailed explanation of the conditions that made the fund appear plausible. Put briefly, Ghana (formerly the Gold Coast), rich in gold and other resources, had been “ripped apart by colonialism, then … set upon by vultures.” This reality supported the notion that some of Ghana’s gold had been squirreled away by someone. That someone, according to Blay-Miezah, was Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first prime minister, who had bequeathed it to him to invest in Ghana’s infrastructure. There was, of course, a snag: getting the fund — eventually “worth” $130 billion — out of the Swiss banks. A man of immense charisma, resilience and slipperiness, Blay-Miezah lured hundreds of people, over 15 years, to invest in the fund, promising increasingly preposterous returns. Jude Owusu narrates this extraordinary tale in a resonant voice, bringing a flawless Ghanaian accent to the major players, changing unobtrusively to pick up Americans and British. (Bloomsbury, Unabridged, 12½ hours)
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