A US court has given Nigerian fraudster Ramon Abbas, often known as Hushpuppi, an 11-year prison sentence.
Hushpuppi admitted complicity to “many more cyber and commercial email compromise operations,” according to the US Department of Justice, which resulted in losses of more than $24 million.
According to court filings, Don Alway, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, claimed that the Nigerian became “one of the most prolific money launderers in the world” as a result of his targeting of Americans and others foreign nationals.
Hushpuppi, who boasted about his lavish lifestyle to his 2.8 million Instagram followers, was detained in Dubai in June 2020 along with 10 other members of his crew, including Olalekan Jacob Ponle, also known as Woodberry. The e-police squad of the Dubai Police conducted six simultaneous raids that resulted in the arrest of 12 offenders.
Over 1.9 million people were victims of a fraud totaling Dh1.6 billion (approximately N169 billion), according to the police. 13 luxury cars valued at N2. 640 billion (Dh 25 million), 21 computers, 47 smartphones, 15 memory storage devices, 5 external hard drives, and 800,000 emails of potential victims were also recovered from the gang. The total value of the items seized was N15.845 billion (Dh 150 million).
In April 2021, Hushpuppi entered a guilty plea to one count of conspiring to commit money laundering. According to court records in California, he acknowledged to trying to steal more than $1.1 million from someone who wished to build a new children’s school in Qatar.
Always claimed that Abbas “used his social media platforms to gain notoriety and to brag about the immense wealth he acquired by engaging in business email compromise scams, online bank heists, and other cyber-enabled fraud that financially destroyed scores of victims and supported the North Korean regime.”
“This significant sentence is the result of years of cooperation among law enforcement in numerous countries and should send a clear warning to international fraudsters that the FBI will seek justice for victims, regardless of whether criminals operate within or outside United States borders,” according to the statement.
According to court records, Hushpuppi sent Judge Otis D. Wright an apology for his actions in a handwritten message and promised to use his own money to compensate his victims. He further claimed that the crime for which he was being prosecuted had only netted him $300,000.
According to court records, Hushpuppi will spend the entirety of his 135-month term in federal prison.
