By That embattled Instagram celebrity, Ramon Abbas better known as Hushpuppi is synonymous to internet fraud is a known fact. For the self-confessed international fraudster who is currently serving a jail term in the United States, there are zero limitations to his knack for crimes.
An agent, who claims to be working under the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) alleged that Hushpuppi has received fresh charges as US prosecutors submitted court documents showing that he committed fraud and laundered over $400k while in prison.
On Wednesday, US prosecutors presented documents before the U.S. District Court of California with fresh evidence indicating Abbas committed fraud and money laundering at the U.S Federal correctional facility.
The documents said the 39-year-old was involved in the purchase and laundering of Economic Impact Payment debit cards obtained from stolen data of U.S. citizens and residents.
According to prosecutors, inmates are allowed access to phone calls, video calls, the internet, exempt from being monitored to protect their rights to privacy.
However, between January 28 and March 4, security officers at the correctional facility observed that Mr. Abbas had gone beyond allowed internet use.
Recall that Abbas, who is popularly known as Hushpuppi, was arrested in June 2021 along with Olalekan Jacob Ponle, also known as Woodberry, and 10 others.
The 12 suspects were arrested in six simultaneous raids carried out by the e-police unit of the Dubai Police. The gang was responsible for Dh1.6 billion (about N169 billion) fraud involving over 1.9 million victims. Items worth N15.845 billion (Dh 150 million) were also seized.
13 luxury cars worth N2. 640 billion (Dh 25 million), 21 laptops, 47 smartphones, 15 memory storage devices, 5 external hard drives and 800, 000 emails of potential victims were also recovered from the gang.
Their arrest in an operation codenamed Fox Hunt 2 came after about four months of painstaking investigations into their activities., during which their social media activities were monitored by the highly trained police unit.
Hushpuppi has since then been facing charges as he was linked to a series of scams.
