A Ghanaian shipping agent, Ahmed, has been scamming innocent Ghanaian residents in the Columbus, Ohio area.

Ahmed, also known as Abu, runs a shipping company from a location unknown to most of his customers. He ships everything from cars and small goods. He also does door-to-door shipping whereby he picks up goods in boxes, barrels or other hard containers from customers’ homes and ships them to residences in Ghana.
Many of us know the difficulties that arise from being far separated from our families in Ghana. Often, we hear about occurrences such as the death of a mother and have to halt our normal routines and responsibilities abroad and arrange for the funeral in Ghana. Others have gone through the same process when returning to Ghana for long vacations, parents’ birthdays, weddings, graduations, and so on. In the best of these scenarios, we have a year to plan, shop, and find a trusted agent to transport our goods to Ghana. In other more hurried situations, such as death in the family, this process is rushed and colored in grief.

The pattern of recent events in Columbus, OH has worsened so much so that victims have broken the silence and begun to talk. They accuse Ahmed of systematically scamming them at a time that they were vulnerable and had to ship goods home. Common problems that they encountered include a demand for duplicate payments, missing goods that were supposed to have been shipped, delays of up to four months. Perhaps what is worse is that he refuses to answer phone calls and help mediate these disappointments.

A victim who prefers to remain unnamed shared: “My three barrels of expensive items arrived after the agreed upon date, when I was already back in Ohio. When I called the shipping agent to demand an answer, he could not give me any sincere apologies. I now have to figure out what to do with all those items for the wedding that I no longer need.” After sharing her story with her friends, she realized that there were others in the Ghanaian community that had been affected by this scammer, yet because there was no public outlet for sharing this information, no one could avoid this scam.

Another victim, Kwame Piesie, who agreed to be interviewed at length, disagreed with victims who do not want to confront Ahmed but have simply decided to entrust their woes to God.

Piesie explained: “When we keep silent about evil things that we see around us, we help to nourish them and allow them to grow.” He cautioned that we should not sit idly and become victims of our circumstances. He further advised that if we cannot change Ahmed’s way of doing business, we should at least unmask him for what he truly is. Piesie, who, because of Ahmed’s scam had to spend extra money on his mother-in-law’s funeral as his items were not delivered, described Ahmed as: “a scammer, a swindler, a trickster and a defrauder.” He warned Ghanaians in Columbus, Ohio to avoid shipping goods to Ghana through Ahmed.

As the Ghanaian people have formed an impressive diaspora, spanning countries and continents, it is our shared duty to look out for one another. Such cheats, as this shipping scam, undermine the work that we have done as immigrants and threatens the future success and unity of our community. It is our responsibility to bring forth these situations and protect one another and hold those responsible to the light of day.