Founder and two insiders accused of systematic looting as fintech group collapses under $200m debt pile
Investigative Report
The first public warning of the crisis at Zeepay Ghana Limited came in a resignation letter so damning that its author copied it to the central bank and the country’s anti-corruption agency.
On February 12, 2026, Zeepay’s Chief Financial Officer, Nana Ntim Asamoah, submitted his resignation after identifying what he described as “material weaknesses and abuse within the Company’s treasury operations.”
The company’s auditor, Ernst & Young, had withdrawn from the 2024 audit due to “persistent delays and inability to obtain sufficient and appropriate audit evidence” and “serious concerns over the quality and reliability of information provided.”
Asamoah was subsequently excluded from preparing revised disclosures sent to EY. When he protested, he was met with silence.
“Where I am unable to support or endorse financial reporting positions that I believe fall short of applicable standards, continued tenure in office becomes untenable,” he wrote.
The letter marked the beginning of an unravelling that has now exposed what investigators describe as a systematic looting operation at one of West Africa’s most celebrated fintech companies and left creditors facing losses that may exceed $100 million.
The Three Insiders
Behind the growth story of Zeepay a company that cleared over USD 3 billion across 10 million transactions in 2023 and secured partnerships with MoneyGram and Remitly investigators have uncovered an operation involving three individuals who allegedly falsified records leading to fabricated financial statements and diverted funds on a significant scale.
Andrew Takyi-Appiah, the founder and CEO, is at the centre of the investigation. A former PwC and Nestle executive who launched Zeepay in 2014, Takyi-Appiah built the company into one of Africa’s largest cross-border remittance platforms, speaking at Davos and appearing on CNN along the way.
But court documents tell a different story. On April 16, 2026, the Commercial Division of the High Court ordered Zeepay and its CEO to pay USD 11.58 million, EUR 8,500 and GHS 1.4 million to a broker money Zeepay had received but, according to the ruling, simply “failed to execute” the corresponding international transfers.
The judgment, obtained by The New Republic, found that client funds were “mostly made into 2nd Defendant Respondent’s personal mobile money wallet” not a corporate account or segregated trust, but Takyi-Appiah’s personal phone number.
Nana Takyiwaa, the founder’s biological sister, was reportedly given power of attorney and access to both her brother’s passwords and those of the treasurer, enabling her to make transfers in their names without effective oversight.
Emmanuel Osei Frimpong joined Zeepay as a national service person and was retained as treasurer. Sources allege he was bought a house for his “dedication” to work but had no power to stop Takyiwaa’s transfers, rendering him a figurehead rather than a fiduciary.
Initially, Takyi-Appiah and Frimpong were the only ones authorised to transfer funds. But the founder then gave his sister power of attorney, effectively bypassing whatever limited controls remained.
The Debt Exposure
The New Republic has obtained a comprehensive list of creditors and the amounts owed a debt trail that exposes the full extent of the company’s financial distress.
IMT Partners: $5m, including MoneyGram, Right Card Systems, Remitely etc
Commercial Banks:
· ABSA (South African bank): GHS 160 million
· UBA (Nigerian bank): GHS 67 million
· Consortium of banks (e-money): GHS 80 million
· Fidelity Bank: GHS 17 million
· GT Bank: GHS 14 million
Other Obligations:
· Verdant: GHS 2 million loan + GHS 3 million equity
· PETRA (Pension funds): GHS 6 million (third party) + GHS 4 million loan
· Local customers: over $20 million in unexecuted transfers
· Undocumented cash customers: millions of dollars
In 2023 alone, investment into Zeepay stood at approximately $14 million most of which investigators allege was based on cooked books.
At one point, according to industry sources, Zeepay ran up a GHS 150 million liability with a tier-one settlement bank a debt that triggered a damaging litigation saga and a loss of confidence from which the company never recovered.
The Bank of Ghana, which was copied on the CFO’s resignation letter, has now moved decisively. Sources with direct knowledge of the matter told The New Republic that the central bank has effectively taken over operations of the fintech group, with the objective of securing whatever funds remain and protecting the interests of depositors and creditors.
The regulator’s intervention comes after months of quiet observation and mounting criticism that the Bank of Ghana had been stretched thin by the proliferation of fintech companies. Zeepay, despite its size and regulatory privileges, appears to have exploited that thinness.
“The regulator knew,” said a former Zeepay employee who spoke on condition of anonymity. “The CFO copied them on the resignation. The audit was withdrawn. And nothing happened until the court ordered a payout.”
The Economic and Organised Crime Office has now launched a full-scale investigation into what insiders are calling the “Zeepay cartel.”
The agency is examining the company’s affairs in detail, particularly in relation to payment termination issues with customers that surfaced around the time of the Bank of Ghana’s latest regulatory actions. The investigation marks a significant escalation in the state’s response to the crisis and raises the prospect of criminal charges.
Barbados Collapse and Winding-Up Petition
The trouble was not confined to Ghana.
On May 5, 2026, the Central Bank of Barbados suspended the licence of Zeemoney (Barbados) Limited, citing “materially deepened concerns” about the institution’s financial condition, governance, operational continuity and regulatory compliance. On June 5, Zeemoney applied to voluntarily wind up its operations, effectively closing four branches across the island.
One source close to the Barbados regulator described the company’s Caribbean operations as “a mirror image of Ghana unfunded liabilities, missing documentation, and a founder who treated subsidiary reserves as his personal ATM.”
On May 29, 2026, Obsidian Achernar Ltd filed a winding-up petition against Zeepay Ghana Ltd at the Commercial Division of the High Court in Accra, alleging an unpaid debt of US$1,223,250.
“The Debtor’s selective payment pattern demonstrates financial distress and an inability to pay all debts,” the petition states.
Zeepay, on its surface, was different from the notorious Menzgold scheme. It didn’t promise investment returns it promised remittance services, moving money from diaspora Ghanaians to their families at home.
But the underlying mechanics, according to court documents and whistleblower accounts, shared a troubling logic with the Menzgold collapse: a reliance on new inflows to service old obligations, a disregard for fiduciary separation between corporate and personal funds, and a founder whose lifestyle bore little relation to his company’s disclosed financial position.
“Zeepay was a liquidity air-gap business,” said a financial analyst who has tracked the company’s filings. “Customers receive funds instantly, but settlement from international corridors takes days. To bridge that gap, Zeepay pre-funded payouts with operational capital. But when the inflows slowed, the gap became a chasm.”
“The architecture was the same,” said a former Zeepay senior manager. “You take money from new customers to pay old ones. You pray the liquidity gap never closes. And you buy property while the house burns.”
As the company crumbled, Takyi-Appiah’s property holdings grew. Sources with direct knowledge of the matter told The New Republic that the CEO’s portfolio includes residential and commercial real estate in Accra’s most affluent neighborhoods East Legon, Cantonments and Airport Residential as well as assets outside Ghana.
“It’s the same pattern as NAM 1,” said a former regulator who now advises fintech companies. “The company is bleeding, but the founder is buying property. The liquidity isn’t disappearing it’s being redirected.”
When The New Republic published its initial findings on June 9 and 11, Takyi-Appiah did not issue a point-by-point rebuttal or supply contrary documents. Instead, he sent lawyers.
The letter arrived on June 12, demanding an immediate retraction and a “prominent apology with equal or greater visibility” within 48 hours. The lawyers refused to name themselves the signature line on the letterhead was blank, with no named partner or responsible solicitor.
Nowhere in the two-page demand did the lawyers identify a single factual error.They did not dispute the High Court’s finding that Zeepay routed client money through the MD’s personal wallet. They did not deny the CFO’s resignation letter or EY’s walkout. They did not challenge the Barbados licence suspension or the winding-up petition.
The High Court will hear the winding-up petition in the coming weeks. EOCO’s investigation is now at full throttle. The Bank of Ghana has taken operational control. And the Barbados shutdown has triggered a scramble among customers trying to access their funds.
For Takyi-Appiah, the question is no longer whether his empire will survive, but whether he will face the same fate as NAM 1: arrest, prosecution and the full weight of Ghana’s criminal justice system.
For Ghana’s fintech sector, the implications are significant. The same innovation that propelled a generation of startups into global markets has also proved vulnerable to unchecked ambition, weak regulatory oversight and a founder’s willingness to treat corporate funds as personal assets.
This is the third installment of The New Republic’s ongoing investigation into Zeepay Ghana Limited. Part Four will examine the Bank of Ghana’s takeover, the scope of EOCO’s criminal investigation and the fate of customers and creditors left in the wake of the collapse.