British woman died in Ghana trying to recoup money from scammers, inquest told

Janet Fordham died in crash after travelling to see man who claimed he would help to recover money from earlier scams A British woman who was scammed out of up to £1m in a string of so-called romance frauds died in a road crash after travelling to west Africa to try to recoup some of her lost fortune, an inquest in Devon has heard. Janet Fordham was cheated of her life savings and her home over a period of five years by fraudsters apparently based in the UK, Germany, the US and Ghana, the inquest in Exeter was told. The retired housekeeper, 69, travelled to Ghana after a man there told her he could help her get some of her money back but she was killed in a car crash as he drove. Members of Fordham’s family and Devon and Cornwall police said they had tried to stop her sending money to scammers but she had been judged to be of sound mind and could not be forced to desist. Fordham’s daughter-in-law Melanie Fordham said she had begun using online dating websites in 2017 and met a man claiming to be a British army sergeant major working in Syria who needed her help to get gold bars to the UK. “He was retiring soon to return to the UK,” Melanie Fordham said. “She said they were in love