COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Africa Investigates Fool's Gold ... Lifting the lid on Ghana's illusory pot of gold and exposing those duping gold speculators out of millions of dollars.

Gold is back. With global investments delivering little returns, the eyes of many investors have turned to the old favourite. But the new gold rush has come with a big rise in scams and confidence tricks. They now represent a major threat for companies and individuals and many of them take place in Africa.

Todd, a businessman from Texas, who recently lost $7,000,000 in a gold scam, is just one of many victims. He was lured to Ghana by an email offering cheap gold from a supposedly legitimate gold trading company. Over a series of meetings he was shown all the official documentation needed to run a legitimate operation. Then he was taken to a small scale mine and shown samples of gold. Todd was convinced he was dealing with serious professionals, so he put a downpayment on the purchase, received all the necessary paperwork and left Ghana feeling happy. When, weeks later, the gold still had not arrived, Todd emailed the company. But the address and telephone numbers were no longer valid and the website had disappeared.

'My kind of journalism' - Ghanaian journalist Anas Aremeya Anas explains his resolve to name, shame and jail those undermining the aspirations of his country by duping foreign investors Ghana is the second-largest producer of gold on the continent and is now home to a large network of gold fraudsters. Investors have lost millions at their hands.

In this investigation, AlJazeera goes undercover to lift the lid on this illusory pot of gold.