On Monday, Ray Hushpuppi, a Nigerian influencer, was sentenced to more than 11 years in federal prison. In Los Angeles, the social media star was discovered laundering millions of dollars. Ray Hushpuppi often shared photos of himself in front of supercars, private aircraft, and fancy apparel. Don Always, an FBI associate director, described the influencer as follows:
“one of the world’s most prolific money launderers.”
Ray Hushpuppi, actual name Ramon Abbas, was ordered by a federal court to repay $1.7 million to two victims of his fraudulent actions. According to the sentencing memorandum, Abbas “conspired to launder over $300 million” that “did not ultimately materialize.” Ray Hushpuppi, 40, had over two million Instagram followers immediately before his arrest in Dubai in 2020.
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Ray Hushpuppi’s money-laundering actions
Prosecutors revealed that Abbas, a Nigerian-Canadian, laundered money from a variety of online crimes, including banking cyber-heists and BEC, or business email compromise, in which crooks hack into one’s email accounts and pretend to be someone else in order to trick the victim into sending money to someone it does not belong to.
Hushpuppi reportedly assisted in the laundering of $14.7 million from a bank in Malta in 2019, as well as the funneling of money via Romanian and Bulgarian institutions. Among his other illegal actions include obtaining $923,000 from a New York law business and laundering millions of pounds from a British corporation and a major football team in the United Kingdom. Ray Hushpuppi also acknowledged assisting a person in Qatar with the laundering of $15 million.
Ray Hushpuppi brags about his wealth on social media.
His social media followers were sure he was a real estate developer, as indicated in his profile. The influencer, on the other hand, was able to fund his opulent lifestyle via internet hacking methods. The caption of one of his Instagram posts read:
“I wish to inspire more young people to follow in my footsteps eventually.”
In another Instagram image from 2020, the fraudster displayed his lavish lifestyle and wrote:
“I started my day with lunch at Nobu in Monte Carlo, Monaco, then booked a helicopter to have… facials at the Christian Dior spa in Paris, and closed my day with champagne at Gucci.”
Photos of him posing with several automobile types, including Rolls-Royce, Bentley, and Ferrari, were featured on his Instagram page. According to reports, he labeled one of the photos in which he displayed his automobiles “#All Mine.”
Pictures of him rubbing shoulders with celebrities and international sportsmen were featured on his page. Hushpuppi referred to himself on Snapchat as the “Billionaire Gucci Master.” During his arrest in 2020 in Dubai, detectives recovered $41 million, roughly two million email addresses of prospective victims, a phone, a computer, and 13 luxury automobiles totaling $6.8 million.
In an Instagram post two weeks before his arrest, he stated:
“Thank you for your numerous blessings in my life, Lord.” Continue to embarrass those who are waiting to be disgraced.”
At the time of writing, his Instagram account has been deactivated.
