MEET 1 HUSHPUPPI, THE DEADLY MAN BEHIND CYBER HEISTS THAT HAVE COST HIS VICTIMS MILLIONS — 𝐓𝐇𝕰𝐆𝐒𝐍𝐍
MEET NIGERIA’S POWERFUL WORLDWIDE FRAUDSTER, HUSHPUPPI
Ever wondered where some of these wealthy people parading their expensive lifestyles on social media get their money from? Ever asked yourself why you wake up at 3 AM I just to go and do work wait for your end month salary which will take you probably years to reach a few millions?
There here we reveal the truth behind these lavish lifestyle parading giant on instagram. On our desk today we have Ramon Abbas popularly known as Hushpuppi, Hushpuppi is a Nigerian influencer who is known for posting photos of his expensive lifestyle on instagram where he has a staggering 2.5 Million followers and Snapchat where he has over 1 million subscribers.
Hushpuppi has $40 million dollars in cash, 13 luxury cars $6.8 million of dollars, 21 computers, 47 smartphones, and addresses of nearly 2 million alledged victims under his wing.
Abbas was arrested in June 2020 in Dubai and these are what was recovered. He would later be taken to the United States of America by the FBI where he remains till now. Court documents from the US where he pleaded guilty to money laundering in April this year of 2021 reveals his involvement in clandestine criminal operation,that would later made the FBI tag him as the most high profile money launderers in the world.
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Ramon’s target alledgedly included a US law farm, a foreign bank, and an English Premier League club. Scott Augenbaum who is a Retired FBI special agent said,
Ramon Abbas is a high level member of a transnational criminal enterprise out of West Africa that, he and his group are responsible for millions of dollars worth of fraud which is known within the FBI,as the business email comprise.
But one of the things that was different about him, is he flaunted all of his stuff. He really kind of put it in everybody’s face like ‘hey look at me, look what I have done, look at my helicopter I’m flying in,’ look at the lifestyle I have,’ and that’s one of the things that really caused his demise.
Hushpuppi was born in Nigeria and raised in Oworonshoki, a low income region in Lagos, around 2014,he moved to Malaysia and by 2017 he moved to Dubai while living a lifestyle that was funded through money obtained by fraudulent means. How big was Abbas? His former lawyer Gal Pissetsky, who is a criminal defense attorney described him as a middleman,
when you look at the bottom line here as far as what Ramon is charged with or has alledgedly done and to what he played guilty to, you know when you look at it specifically as to him, Ramon was not that big money launderers that the newspapers or the government had made him to be, in my opinion. He was more of , maybe what I would call a middleman in some instances. I would say that most of these alleged schemes did not come to fruition.
Court documents reveals that his crimes costed victims almost $24 million. They revealed scheme to steal more than $1.1 million from a business person funding a children’s school in Qatar,and laundering of illicit funds in banks all over the world.
In early 2000s when Hushpuppi is was still a young man, there was an explosion of of internet cafes across Nigeria. Youths flocked these cafes as Source of entertainment. Not too long after reports of cybercrime started to emerge as young men in chat rooms illicitly obtained money from friends they made.A cybercrime expert by the name, Dr Adedeji Oyenuga, has studied these men and their crimes,
cybercrime and is eveloving every time because when a particular technique is popular, the law enforcement will be trying to track down that particular technique and then they discard it and look for another one. They will always come up with newer techniques.
For example, when they realise that they could be tracked on their laptops, they come up with the idea of VPN (virtual Private Network) and when they realise VPN could be Busted they come up with idea of buying logins from the dark web.”
Adedeji who is a criminologist said.
One of the techniques Hushpuppi used to successfully obtain money from his victims was via Business Email Compromise(BEC). A BEC is a type of scam that targets companies and organizations for financial gain or data theft. Cyber criminals will typically compromise or spoof a legitimate email account and then send fraudulent emails to an addressee requesting transfer of funds or sensitive data, and then wi try and add some urgency to it as well.So they will put some information in there to make you think all is right, this is urgent I’ve got to act now.
It puts a bit of pressure on the email receiver. They’ll also quite carefully craft some of these emails as well so they wi be using things that you may have taken off social media about the person who sent the 6to,so they will seem quite legitimate.
According to an FBI report released in 2020,over $1 billion dollars was lost by victims of Business Email Compromise.
According to alot of reports and according to cyber security ventures, the cybercrime problem globally has grown from a $3 trillion problem to a whooping $6 trillion problem worth of cash and this is from 2015 now just think how big that is and the problem continues to get worse. Why? Because a lot of the fraud going on is impacting senior citizens and small businesses, added Mr Scott.
“I’ve seen church and non profit organizations destroyed by these enterprises.
He said.
What we see in Africa is a very steep upward curve over the last short of five to 10 years of connectivity. Online crime has grown, it has become very difficult for law enforcement to get a true perspective of levels because, the reporting of cyber crime is often very underreported or not completely reported. What we are seeing in Africa is a greater take up of the sort of the mobile phone apps. This makes a lot of people in Nigeria but also across Africa are using banking apps to do their business and their money transfers.
This has led to increased organised crime groups and organised crime networks and individuals and they may have some skills they may have some ability within being able to get into systems.
Nigeria has been listed by the FBI as the 16th country that has been affected by cybercrime in the world. In a recent research by Cyber security company Agari, it found out that 50% of all BEC attacks originate from Nigeria. Meanwhile, Hushpuppi is looking at a prison sentence of upto at least 20 years. He is yet to appear in a California court in October this year. Law enforcement agencies hope that high profile arrests of Hushpuppi and his accomplices will discourage other cybercriminals.
Originally published at https://thegsnn.com.
