LOS ANGELES (AP) – A Nigerian social media influencer who masquerades as Ray Hushpuppy and pretends to have a lavish way of life inspired by his attempts to rob millions of {dollars} stolen, was arrested on Monday. Was sentenced to more than 11 years in Los Angeles. Federal Prison.
Ramon Abbas, 40, was also ordered to pay $1.7 million in compensation to two fraud victims, according to a US Justice Department press release.
Don Alway, assistant director responsible for the FBI’s Los Angeles office, said in the statement that Abbas was “one of the world’s most prolific money launderers.”
Prosecutors said Abbas and a Canadian man laundered funds from a number of online crimes, including bank cybercrime and commercial e-mail compromise, or BEC, a prolific crime in which crooks hack into e-mail accounts, without having any Don’t fake it and put the stupid victims in strings of cash where it doesn’t belong.
In 2019, he helped rob about $14.7 million stolen by North Korean hackers from a bank in Malta, funding cash through banks in Romania and Bulgaria, prosecutors noted.
He also helped rob tens of millions of kilos stolen from a British company and a specialist football membership in the United Kingdom, obtained a New York-based regulatory agency to convert approximately $923,000 into a felony account and accepted a plea agreement. did that he helped with the fraud, federal prosecutors said someone in Qatar asked for a $15 million loan to build a school.
Upon Monday’s sentencing, Abbas was sentenced to 135 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $922,857 in compensation to the victim in Qatar and $809,983 to the regulatory agency.
Prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo, “By his own admission, during the only 18-month period the defendants plotted the robbery to the tune of more than $300 million,” though they noted much of the damage “ultimately did not materialize.” ”
Abbas had over 2 million Instagram followers under the name “Ray Hushpuppy” before he was arrested in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates in 2020.
His social media posts affirmed him to live a luxurious life full of private jets, ultra-expensive cars and expensive clothes and watches.
“I hope that someday I will inspire more youth to join me on this path,” learn an Instagram post put up by Abbas, who in April 2021 at least one trusted conspiracy to negotiate cash laundering be attributed to.
Galeb Aloumari, 37, of Mississauga in Ontario, Canada, was charged personally. Prosecutors said they held at least one trust responsible for conspiring to negotiate cash laundering in 2020. He was sentenced to nearly 12 years in federal prison and ordered to pay more than $30 million in restitution.
