A Nigerian social media star, known for flaunting a lavish lifestyle for millions of her Instagram followers, appeared in court in the US on charges of carrying out a global fraud operation, including attacking to a Premier League football club, a bank, and a U.S. law firm.
Ramon Olorunwa Abbas, a 37-year-old man known as “Ray Hushpuppi” who claims to run a real estate business, allegedly conspired to launder hundreds of millions of dollars through commercial email compromise (BEC) frauds and other scams, the United States Department of Justice (DoJ) said.
A months-long investigation by the FBI led to his arrest last month by authorities in the United Arab Emirates, where Abbas was a resident.
In a video posted online by Dubai police, officers working on “Operation Fox Hunt 2” broke into Hushpuppi’s home while he was sleeping and arrested him, in one of a series of coordinated raids against him and other conspirators.
FBI special agents obtained custody of Abbas and took him to Chicago, where he appeared in court on Friday morning, the Justice Department said.
In hundreds of Instagram posts in recent years, the popular Nigerian citizen has shown an opulent lifestyle to more than 2.4 million followers, posing in designer clothes and watches, luxury cars, and rented planes. Investigators were able to track their movements by following their posts, the Justice Department said.
“The FBI investigation has revealed that Abbas finances this opulent lifestyle through crime,” the agency said.
Cyber fraud has been increasingly targeted by Nigerian authorities in recent years, but it remains a major challenge.
Abbas is prominent among a cohort of famous social media stars celebrated in Nigerian popular culture even though links to fraud networks have long been suspected.
Networks, like many criminal fraud groups around the world, have used the commitment of commercial email or BEC schemes prolifically, tricking companies into making money transfers.
Abbas and others “conspired to launder £ 100 million (approximately $ 124 million) from an English Premier League football club,” the Justice Department said. The club was not named by the agency.
Abbas is also accused of laundering a stolen $ 14.7 million in a cyber-robbery from an unidentified bank in February 2019, sending the money to bank accounts worldwide.
If convicted, Abbas could face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
After his arrest in Dubai, Nigeria’s anti-corruption body, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, said Abbas was his “most wanted hacker” and was under investigation in Nigeria.
