US jailed Nigerian fraudster

• Nigerian Instagram influencer was sentenced to almost 11 years in the US.
• Ramon Abbas flaunted his fortune on his 2.8 million-follower page.
• He was ordered to repay two fraud victims $1,732,841.

An international fraud syndicate’s Nigerian Instagram influencer was sentenced to almost 11 years in the US.

Hushpuppi, real name Ramon Abbas, flaunted his fortune on his 2.8 million-follower page before it was disabled.

He was ordered to repay two fraud victims $1,732,841 (£1,516,182) by the Los Angeles judge.

Abbas will serve 135 months in federal prison.

He admitted money laundering last year.

According to California court filings, Abbas attempted to embezzle almost $1.1m from a Qatari school funder.

“By playing the roles of bank officials and developing a phony website,” the then-acting US Attorney Tracy Wilkinson stated on the US justice department’s website, the fraudster duped his victim into funding the school. The US justice department said Abbas was engaged with other individuals.

The US federal department said Abbas acknowledged to “many more cyber and commercial email compromise operations that altogether generated more than $24 million in losses”.

“Ramon Abbas… targeted both American and international victims, becoming one of the most prolific money launderers in the world,” stated FBI Los Angeles Field Office associate director Don Alway in a court document on Monday.

“Abbas utilized his social media platforms… to obtain recognition and to brag about the vast fortune he acquired by performing business email compromise schemes, online bank heists and other cyber-enabled fraud that financially wrecked dozens of victims and assisted the North Korean state.

“This large sentence is the product of years of coordination among law enforcement in several nations and should send a strong reminder to international fraudsters that the FBI will seek justice for victims, regardless of perpetrators’ location.”

Abbas wrote a handwritten apology to Judge Otis D Wright, promising to repay his victims with his own money. He claimed he made $300,000 from his crime.

In 2020, Dubai authorities captured Abbas, ending his lavish lifestyle.

His Instagram feed showed expensive cars and fine clothes, far from his humble roots.

Abbas’s parents were taxi drivers and market traders, but as he got older, he developed a penchant for spending. “He gave. Seye, a local driver, said he bought everyone beer.

Seye claims he started his fraudulent lifestyle as a “Yahoo boy,” a Nigerian term for males who steal identities online and defraud their unsuspecting lovers.

In 2019, Abbas tried to launder €13m ($13m) stolen by North Korean hackers from the Maltese Bank of Valletta, causing payment systems to shut down on the European island of Malta.

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