Nigerian Insta star, Hushpuppi pleads guilty to conspiracy to engage in money laundering, faces up to 20 years in U.S prison

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Nigerian Internet celebrity, Ramon Abbas a.k.a “Hushpuppi” has reportedly pleaded guilty in U.S Federal High court to conspiracy to engage in money laundering from business email compromise scams and other online crimes.

Journalist Evan Ratliff who writes for Bloomberg, tweets that Hushpuppi “will face up to 20 years in prison at sentencing.

“In his plea agreement, Abbas admitted to laundering money from the Malta Bank heist and the BEC attacks on a Premier League club, another UK firm, and an American law firm, as well as additional schemes.

“Abbas’ plea agreement, which involved crimes allegedly perpetrated by North Korean state sponsored hackers, was heavily redacted and many of the filings in the case remain sealed.”

The plea that the internet fraudster will henceforth not contest facts entered in the agreement and abide by all agreements regarding sentencing. Hushpuppi is also expected to truthful at all times with the United States probation and pretrial services office and the court.

The Insta Star will reportedly pay close to $1.7m as restitution, but this can change based on facts that come up prior to sentencing.

Hushpuppi was arrested by Dubai police on June 10, 2020, alongside 11 other members of his gang which include Olalekan Jacob Ponle aka ‘Woodberry.’

Dubai police accused the suspects of “committing crimes outside the UAE (United Arab Emirates), including money-laundering, cyber fraud, hacking, criminal impersonation, scamming individuals, banking fraud and identity theft.”

Nearly $41 million in cash, 13 luxury cars valued at around $6.8 million, and phone and computer evidence containing more than 100,000 fraud files and the addresses of nearly two million possible victims were found during the raid, according to Dubai Police.

He was flown to Chicago after being expelled from the UAE.

He made his initial U.S. court appearance in Chicago on July 3, 2020 and was subsequently transferred to Los Angeles for trial.

According to CNN, citing court documents, Abbas along with other defendants, faked the financing of a school by posing as bank officials and creating a fake website to convince a Qatari businessman to part with his money. They also “bribed a foreign official to keep the elaborate pretense going after the victim was tipped off,” said Acting United States Attorney Tracy L. Wilkison.

They succeeded in defrauding the businessman of $1.1m and part of the stolen money was used to “purchase a Richard Mille RM11-03 watch, which was hand delivered to Abbas in Dubai and subsequently appeared in Hushpuppi’s social media posts,” prosecutors said.

Abbas also used part of the proceeds to allegedly acquire “St. Christopher and Nevis citizenship, as well as a passport for Abbas obtained by creating a false marriage certificate and then bribing a government official in St. Kitts,” according to official documents.

Abbas was a lavish spender who claimed to be a real estate developer and was famous for tossing wads of cash and flaunting his Rolls Royces, luxury watches, and designer clothing on Instagram where he has amassed more than two million followers.

“May success and prosperity not be a “once upon a time” story in your life…”, the fraudster wrote in his last Instagram post before his arrest.