In Spring 2019 Addeah Prempeh contacted a Ghanaian Member of Parliament, Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings, and persuaded her to give him money for his studies in the Netherlands. She now realizes he scammed her.

Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings is the eldest daughter of former President of Ghana Jerry Rawlings and a champion for women’s and children’s rights and the environment. In 2017 Kwadwo Addeah Prempeh approached her to speak at his Ghana Readers Club event, to help promote reading in the nation. She posted the pictures of this event on her Facebook timeline, which is how we found her and why we contacted her.

In an e-mail dated September 16, 2019, she explained: “I met Addeah for the first time in the same year he did his reading event. He approached me in Parliament with a convincing pitch. When I got to the venue I saw Dutch ambassador Ron Strikker as well as a rep from the USAID there. I suppose it added more legitimacy.”

After the event she didn’t hear from him anymore, until in Spring 2019 he contacted her by e-mail. She stated:

“Addeah contacted me out of the blue a couple of months ago, claiming his scholarship money was short and he was homeless and needed some money. I didn’t give him the full amount he asked for, but I did send him some money via transfer. It never occurred to me that this was a scam, even though the story did seem odd. I remember asking myself why he would go abroad for a course he could have done in Ghana without needed accommodation and other payments.”

That Addeah was homeless for a few days is correct. As he swindled an accommodation in Ede, committing bank fraud in the process, his host had kicked him out. But we know for sure that he was not enrolled in university at that time, and his scholarship and university applications were declined. He lied that he needed money for his studies.

To show he also made an effort to support himself, Addeah claimed he got a job at a local agricultural company, which was not true. His hosts confirmed that he never went to work, and his ’employer’ confirmed to us that it was a volunteer job for which he never showed up.

Agyeman-Rawlings said she was “shocked and appalled” to hear that Addeah Prempeh duped people in The Netherlands and also scammed a staff member of the Golden Sunbeam School.