German Widow Appeals to OSP to Recover GH₵3.2M Lost in Fake Gold Scheme

• A 69-year-old German widow, Waltraud Wiesent, lost €248,000 to two Nigerian men in a fake Ghanaian gold investment scheme
• German banks auctioned Wiesent's houses after she took out loans to fund what she believed was a legitimate bullion deal
• Despite a 2015 court conviction, Wiesent has not recovered a single cedi and is now calling on the Office of the Special Prosecutor

A 69-year-old German widow has written to Ghana's Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng, pleading for help reclaiming €248,000, equivalent to GH₵3,202,176.00, that she lost to two Nigerian men running a fake gold investment operation.

Waltraud Wiesent, a retired technical engineer, disclosed through the Ghanaian Times that she was convinced by a man she knew as "Chris Walters of Nottingham" to send large sums of money to what she believed were legitimate Ghanaian bullion dealers.

According to a report by GhanaWeb, prosecutors later identified "Chris Walters" as Mark Latif Adijum.

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She transferred the funds through MoneyGram, Ecobank, and Guaranty Trust Bank across multiple transactions.

How Wiesent lost her homes

To raise the money, Wiesent took out bank loans in Germany, putting her properties up as collateral. When the investment turned out to be fraudulent, she could not repay the loans, and German banks moved to auction her houses to recover what she owed.

By the time she travelled to Ghana for the third time and uncovered the truth, she had lost both her savings and her properties.

She reported the men to Ghanaian authorities, triggering a criminal investigation.

Convictions brought no financial relief to Wiesent

In 2015, the Accra Circuit Court found Adijum and his accomplice, Benjamin Taofeek Oluwashola, guilty of conspiracy and defrauding by false pretence.

Adijum was sentenced to eight years in prison, though he subsequently had the sentence set aside on appeal. Oluwashola was ordered to pay a fine of GH₵40,000.

Although the court directed that Wiesent be fully compensated, she has not received any money. More than a decade after the fraud, the financial harm she suffered remains entirely unaddressed.

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With the standard court process having yielded nothing, Wiesent is now banking on the Office of the Special Prosecutor to use its powers to locate and seize any Ghanaian assets held by the two convicts.

She hopes that, where a criminal sentence and a restitution order both failed, asset recovery by a specialised anti-corruption body might finally bring her some relief.

Norwegian national defrauded in gold scam

Meanwhile, YEN.com.gh previously reported that a Norwegian had been defrauded of GH¢16,000 and $1,000 in a gold scam allegedly carried out by a Nigerian man and another suspect.

The suspect, Promise Kuasi Oniwor, had been granted bail of GH¢50,000 following his arrest.

Oniwor had been arrested and charged with conspiracy to defraud by false pretences, but he had pleaded not guilty.

Source: YEN.com.gh