Northshire Saratoga: Yaddo Presents Yepoka Yeebo – Anansi’s Gold – In Person Aug. 29

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Northshire Bookstore and Yaddo present an evening with author and journalist Yepoka Yeebo who shares the 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. 

Yeebo will discuss the book with Kristy Davis. “Anansi’s Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World” published this month by Bloomsbury Publishing.  

Some background: 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. 

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. 

The conversation takes place at Northshire Bookstore Saratoga, 424 Broadway, at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 29.