UK widow dies in Ghana car crash after losing £1 million to romance scams
via GhanaWeb3 min read
Janet Fordham, a 69-year-old UK widow, died in a car crash in Ghana after losing an estimated £1 million to a series of romance scams over five years, an inquest heard. The scams, which began in 2017, drained her savings and forced her to sell her home. Fordham was targeted by multiple online fraudsters, including one who claimed to be a British Army sergeant major in Syria and another posing as a diplomat. Her family, including daughter-in-law Melanie Fordham, warned her against sending money, but she continued to transfer funds through various channels, including bank transactions, post office wire services, Bitcoin, and ATM withdrawals. Banks and the post office eventually blocked her transfers due to fraud concerns. Police also intervened multiple times, urging her to cease contact with fraudsters. In October 2022, Fordham traveled to Ghana to meet a man named Kofi, who had claimed he could help her recover lost funds and with whom she developed a romantic relationship. While traveling with Kofi from Accra to the Oti Region to seek family approval for marriage, their vehicle crashed, and she sustained fatal injuries. Kofi later received a suspended prison sentence for driving-related offenses. The senior coroner concluded that Fordham died from a head injury sustained in the road traffic collision.
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This summary was AI-generated from a story originally published by GhanaWeb.
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