Hushpuppi Faces 20 Years In US Prison Over Alleged N168bn Fraud

The United States Department of Justice has disclosed that Nigerian Instagram socialite, Ramon Abbas, aka Hushpuppi, faces 20 years imprisonment for alleged cyber crimes committed worth N168bn.

In a statement released by the US Department of Justice on Friday, Hushpuppi who arrived in the US on Thursday after being extradited from Dubai, was allegedly involved in a series of cyber crimes including fraud, hacking of websites and account, banking fraud, and other related crimes, along with his accomplices including Olalekan Ponle (Woodberry).

Hushpuppi with his accomplices were arrested by Dubai Police and Interpol on June 10. They were alleged to have scammed over 1.9 million people in a fraudulent scheme worth $435m (N168bn).

During their arrest, over 10 luxury cars worth N3.7bn, 47 smartphones, 21 laptops, 15 storage devices and Five hard disks containing data were recovered from their home.

Hushpuppi’s criminal charges in the US involves laundering over millions of dollars from business email related frauds and other scams.

“If convicted of conspiracy to engage in money laundering, Abbas would face a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison,” the US DOJ stated.