Ghana woke up on Tuesday, July 2, 2024, with the exciting news of being the home of a Guinness World Record (GWR) holder for the longest cooking marathon for an individual.
‘Executive Chef’ Ebenezer Smith announced at a press conference that Guinness World Records had conferred him with a certificate for his achievement.
He proudly informed the nation that he had clocked an impressive 802 hours and 25 minutes of cooking to dethrone ‘Irish King’, Alan Fisher, who held the record with 119 hours.
Chef Smith had cooked from February 1 to March 6, 2024, in a popular cook-a-thon that attracted people from various sections of the country.
His announcement of success came as a breath of fresh air for the nation as previous attempts by other individuals to break records failed, to the disappointment of many.
With a renewed sense of hope for hardworking Ghanaian youth with dreams of breaking global records, many congratulatory and motivational messages trickled in.
To many others, this gave them the ultimate bragging right over their arch-rivals on the internet, the Nigerians.
The rug was roughly pulled from under their feet while they gathered their arsenals to go after their ‘Naija brothers’ in another Ghana-Naija trolling fest.
It turned out the ‘Executive’ Millenium Chef Smith lied. He pulled one of the biggest audacious scams the nation had seen in recent times.
Checks with the GWR proved that they had not awarded any certificate to the Ghanaian chef.
The organisation said that he did not apply to GWR to permit him to begin the cooking marathon.
In their own words, “The current and true current record holder is: The longest cooking marathon (individual) is 119 hr 57 min 16 sec and was achieved by Alan Fisher (Ireland) in Matsue, Shimane, Japan, from September 28 to October 3 2023”.
Following days of shock, confusion and anger among citizens, a tearful Chef Smith admitted that the announcement and the certificate he presented at the press conference were fake.
He further apologised and asked Ghanaians to forgive him, citing his desperate quest to earn a living as the reason behind the fraudulent scheme.
But before Chef Smith, who may as well be given a GWR for boldly scamming the nation in an era when information can be easily verified, others successfully threw sand in the nation’s eyes.
As the events unfold and questions continue to run through many people’s minds, The Ghana Report examines other individuals who pulled off similar scams to the shock of Ghanaians.
- John Ackah Blay-Miezah
Ackah Blay-Miezah is popularly described as the man who carried out one of the “largest frauds of the twentieth century”.
The Ghanaian con artist is considered the pioneer of advance fee fraud. He carried out his operations across continents.
Blay-Miezah claimed to be worth $47 billion. He is said to have swindled over $200m from North America, Europe, and Asia victims from the 1960s to the 1980s.
He did this by creating the fictitious Oman Ghana Trust Fund, which he claimed was endowed by Dr Kwame Nkrumah.
In order to access the fund, he told his victims, particularly wealthy individuals, that he needed money, promising to pay $10 for every $1 he received.
Blay-Miezah managed to get the support of high-ranking members of society, such as Ako Adjei and John N. Mitchell.
He claimed to be many things, including the President of the African Development Bank, a medical doctor, a diplomat, and the son of noted jurist Robert Samuel Blay.
He also claimed he was studying at the University of Pennsylvania while he was, in reality, working as a waiter.
He was imprisoned for seven years in Ghana in 1974 for fraud and bribery but was released after serving four years.
Like Chef Smith, Blay-Miezah also held a press conference in 1960 to announce that he had inherited 160 million dollars from Daniel Wilbold Layman and that he planned to invest 6 million dollars in various projects in his native Nzema area.
Blay-Miezah also managed to convince Acheampong’s government of 47 billion in Swiss Banks, earning him a diplomatic passport.
He also convinced the PNDC government of the scheme, and his diplomatic passport was renewed.
He was put under house arrest for deceiving the PNDC government in Accra and died on June 30, 1992.
Even in his death, he sowed confusion among his family by claiming that he had some $15 billion in an offshore bank.
- Fauster Atta Mensah
Fauster Atta Mensah, also known as Professor John Vinzelts, is easily recognised by Ghanaians and other nationals.
He notoriously presented himself as a young genius excelling in various fields of endeavours by creating an elaborate online presence.
Notable among his fraudulent activities was convincing respectable organisations that he was a Nobel Prize winner in physics.
Atta Mensah also created websites similar to CNN’s and Aljazeera’s YouTube pages with false information, photoshopped images of him in a NASA suit in space, and a couple of photos of him claiming to have made a robotic hand.
He managed to win the hearts of many reputable government institutions, churches, and the media, which sang about his ‘incredible achievements’ on their platforms.
He, however, met his Waterloo when he scored an interview slot on the national broadcaster Ghana Television (GTV).
During the interview, Mensah boldly declared himself the current chairman of the African Computer Society (ACS) and the 4th youngest Ghanaian African Scientist to go to NASA.
Following the live broadcast, some Ghanaians took it upon themselves to dig into his credentials.
The checks revealed that Mensah was a bold-faced fraudster who swindled the nation.
He went ahead and rebranded himself as Professor John Vinzelts, taking on the title of Country Head for UN Youth and Commissioner with the World Diplomatic Organisation (WDO).
- Kwame Owusu Fordjour
Kwame Owusu Fordjour, popularly known as Dr. UN, deceived some prominent members of society in 2020 with his self-styled Global Blueprint Excellence Awards.
The award targeted personalities in academia, politics, sports, media and entertainment and was purportedly associated with the United Nations (UN) and the Kofi Annan Foundation.
The UN, however, distanced itself from the scheme and clarified that it had no affiliation with the awards or the persons involved.
However, he insisted that the award was credible since he advocated development and excellent leadership.
Dr. UN, who operated under the alias Wayne Winston, claimed to hold a PhD, be a Harvard alumnus, and present himself as a Global Ambassador for the UN.