A former ally of Nana Appiah Mensah, CEO of the embattled gold-trading firm, Menzgold Ghana limited, has forecast some more gloom about the locked funds of Menzgold investors not only in Ghana but around the world.

According to Eric Pope Akaah, Nana Appiah Mensah was in the business of investing funds from his clients in Cryptoworld and Bitcenter, two platforms where he could make double returns overnight, hence his ability to expand and pay up his customers.

However, the ‘glory days’ of the online Cryptoworld and Bitcenter was short lived as they crashed suddenly and to him, it is not so surprising that NAM1 is unable to repay his clients, because the source of his personal investments and funds “had crashed”.

In an interview on Kofi TV, Eric Pope Akaak, who claimed to have been in the same line of business with NAM1 revealed that they both invested in Cryptoworld and Bitcenter, both of which can neither be traced nor has legal backing. And just as the two companies operated, Menzgold lured investors in by offering a 10% monthly return on investment and claims it “has produced an unblemished 100% records since its inception.”

He further revealed that it would be very difficult if not impossible for Menzgold customers to retrieve their locked up funds if NAM1 has no backup account.

“I don’t know if NAM1 was saving somewhere to rescue himself from impediments like this, however, I’m not sure he can get monies owed investors for them because the source of where he was getting the investment and funds from crashed. I know a lot of prominent people including pastors in America whose funds are locked up as well.”

He emphasized that Menzgold is a Ponzi scheme and not a permanent financial institution but human greediness led investors to increasingly reinvest.



Background

In 2016, BoG publicly issued a warning requesting the public to discontinue business practices with the company, which was then “Menzbanc.”

Then late last year, the central bank furnished another warning, this time after findings from the Minerals Commission that Menzgold was soliciting the general public with interest rates on gold between 7%-10%.

Menzgold has been struggling to pay its customers after it was asked to stop operating its gold vault market by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over regulatory infractions.

In a related development, Nii Armah Amateifio, the acting Director of Communication of Menzgold, has said the life of the CEO is under threat, thus, the opacity surrounding his whereabouts.