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Australian national identified over alleged role as physical stand-in that scammed US$700,000 out of American man.
A Ghanaian law enforcement agency has revealed the alleged role and identity of an Australian woman in a sophisticated romance scam run out of the West African nation of Ghana.
Ghana’s Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO) told CBS News, during a wider investigation into romance scams plaguing Americans, the story of how Rebecca Jade Silk allegedly became involved in a scam that netted $700,000 from a 75-year-old radiologist.
The man – referred to anonymously in the report as “John” – fell victim to the boss of a Ghanaian scam syndicate called Alfred Kwame Ayivor, who had been posing as an Australian woman living in the United States named Grace Erskine.
According to the CBS News report, Ghanaian scammers go to great lengths to build their online personas. They will operate in the correct time zone if needed and conduct in-depth research on the countries they’re pretending to be from.
After falling for the initial scam, John sensibly insisted on meeting Erskine in real life, which is when Ayivor hired an Australian woman to visit the man in the United States and pose as Erskine. According to EOCO chief Gerald Kpangkpari, John even introduced Erskine to his family.
Erskine told John she had inherited a Ghanaian gold mine and she wanted to offer him a stake in the mine to set the two of them up together for life.
Ayivor then arranged for a second meeting in the Ghanaian capital of Accra to finalise the deal and explained the plan to Silk.
“That’s where we stand with John, one week in Ghana with Grace,” Ayivor told Silk.
“Yuck. He’s so gross,” Silk allegedly said.
Ayivor insisted it was only “One week + TLC”.
“I am not opening my legs for him,” Silk said.
Ayivor played the part of John’s driver during his visit to Accra to oversee the rest of the scam and Silk reprised her role as Erskine, staying in the same hotel as John for some of his visit.
After realising what had happened to him, John’s daughter referred the matter to the FBI, which passed what it could learn on to EOCO. While the information was useful, it was the amount of money Ayivor appeared to be earning despite being unemployed that drew their attention, according to Kpangkpari.
Ayivor was arrested in 2019 but fell ill and died before the case could go to trial while the woman posing as Erskine seemed to disappear once the scam was complete. She was identified as an Australian woman named Rebecca Jade Silk. CBS News reporters found Silk in NSW in September 2024, though she refused to confirm or deny the Ghanaian allegations.
Ghanaian police still consider Silk as a person of interest in their investigation.
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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