Published: August 17, 2026
MONROVIA – A woman paid US$7,200 over five weeks to a man who told her she had three days to live unless she funded a series of spiritual sacrifices, according to a Liberia National Police charge sheet that says none of it was real.
Police have charged Saah Fayiah Jr., 61, also known as Alahaji Bamba, with theft of property under Section 15.51 of the Revised Penal Law. The Anti-Theft Squad of the Central Security Division arrested him on Aug. 11 and filed the charge sheet on Aug. 13. Investigators concluded that Fayiah is not a herbalist, that nobody paid him to kill the complainant, and that he used claims of traditional healing to take money from her.
The account below is drawn from the charge sheet, which contains the statements of the complainant, a witness and Fayiah himself. None of it has been tested in court.
The complainant, a resident of Fendell, told police the calls began on July 8 while she was traveling toward Roberts International Airport. The caller said he did not know her, that a man had paid him US$5,000 to kill her, that he was a herbalist who had already prepared medicine to end her life, and that she had three days to act. One day had already passed.
She sent LD$5,000 to cover his transport and he came to her home in the Last Turning Point area of Fendell. There, she told police, he performed a ritual with a horn and showed her a red substance he said was medicine planted in Cape Mount to kill her. He then said his jinn was angry that he had interfered to save her and demanded US$1,500 for a sacrifice. She gave him US$1,200.
The demands continued, according to her statement, with requests for money to buy a cow, a goat and a chicken for further sacrifices. She said she paid US$7,200 in installments in all. When he demanded another US$3,000, she managed US$2,000 and then told him she had nothing left.
On Aug. 11 he asked for more. She said she had US$100 and he told her to bring it to Clara Town. The Anti-Theft Squad was already on the case, and officers arrested him at the meeting point.
A witness who identified himself as the complainant’s brother told police he went with her to six meetings with Fayiah, who presented himself as a native doctor, and that she carried money each time without explaining the full circumstances to him. He said Fayiah obtained his number and called him when he could not reach her, and that he went with her to the police station on Aug. 11.
Fayiah gave investigators a different account. He acknowledged calling her while she traveled to the airport but said the conversation was about a land dispute, and that she sent him LD$5,000 for transport. He said that at his Clara Town home he placed an empty carton in front of her, told her to put in US$1 and her ring, and that money appeared after he consulted his oracle. He said he told her a sacrifice was required before she could collect it, that she left promising to return with cash, and that she came back with police.
Police describe Fayiah as a suspected serial scammer and say their case rests on the complainant’s account, the witness statement and cash-transfer records. He is presumed innocent.
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