“Hashbobi” admits to money laundering and defrauding a Gulf businessman

One of the world’s most dangerous fraudsters and cybercriminals, Ramon Abbas, known as “Hushpuppi,” who was arrested by Dubai Police, has confessed to committing a series of crimes, including fraud, money laundering, and seizing other people’s money through deception and hacking into the emails and bank data of individuals and companies, according to the first statement issued by the US Department of Justice regarding the accused who was extradited to the United States from the UAE in June of last year.

After arresting “Hashpuppi” in a sophisticated operation called “Fox Hunt”, Dubai Police revealed that they had seized forged documents that his gang had used in electronic fraud operations outside the country, with a value exceeding 1.6 billion dirhams. They also seized more than 150 million dirhams in his possession, as well as luxury cars worth about 25 million dirhams.

In detail, “Hushpuppi”, 38 years old, one of the celebrities of the “Instagram” network with more than 2.4 million followers, admitted to defrauding a Gulf businessman and seizing more than a million dollars from him.

He also admitted to money laundering through bank accounts opened by his gang in many countries, in addition to email hacking and fraud, causing losses estimated at about 100 million dirhams.

Hushpuppi was famous for his extravagant and luxurious life, which aroused the obsession of his fans. He was always seen in his private plane, and owned the most luxurious cars, such as Rolls-Royce, Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Bentley. He even appeared in each car, depending on the color of the shirt he was wearing.

This life of extreme luxury was a dazzling curtain that hid behind it a dark world of a major gang, carrying out extensive fraud operations in several countries, including the United States and European countries, to the point that a major competition took place between the American Federal Bureau of Investigation and the authorities of his country in Nigeria over who would be the first to arrest him. However, the Dubai Police beat everyone to it and arrested him and his gang in a special operation carried out by six raid teams, revealing a treasure trove of information, valuable possessions and dangerous secrets.

Several reports confirmed that the arrest of the accused was a major blow by all standards, as he had been presenting himself as an important businessman and investor, while he was considered one of the most dangerous cyber fraud criminals.

After his arrest, Dubai Police announced that “Hashbobi” and his gang were accused of fraudulently seizing other people’s money, money laundering crimes outside the country, hacking websites and electronic accounts, impersonating others for the purpose of electronic fraud, in addition to banking fraud, stealing victims’ identities, and using them in electronic fraud crimes.

The Director of the General Department of Criminal Investigations and Investigations, Brigadier Jamal Al Jallaf, stated that the electronic investigations team was able to track all members of the gang and verify their criminal activities, which consisted of creating fake pages on social media sites with fake names, hacking into companies’ emails, and sending fake messages to those dealing with them, so that they could change the course of financial transfers to their own bank accounts, in addition to their work on designing and imitating fake pages on the Internet, especially for companies and banks, to steal the credit card data of the victims, seize their money, and then launder this stolen money.

He added that Dubai Police had devised a plan to raid the gang members after identifying their places of residence. Six teams conducted the raid at zero hour, arrested them all, and found in their residences huge amounts of information about individuals, companies, bank accounts, and credit cards, in addition to documents documenting money laundering, fraud, and electronic fraud, and hacking the accounts of victims outside the country.

He revealed that the arrest of the gang contributed to the seizure of forged documents in electronic fraud operations outside the country, exceeding 1.6 billion dirhams, in addition to the seizure of amounts exceeding 150 million dirhams. In their residence, 21 computers, 47 smartphones, 15 memory sticks, and five hard disks were found, containing 119,580 fraud files, and addresses of 1,926,400 victims, and the confiscation of 13 luxury cars purchased by the gang from money laundering and electronic fraud crimes, estimated at a value of 25 million dirhams.

The “Hushpuppi” gang used forged papers in fraud operations worth 1.6 billion dirhams.

Dubai Police arrested him in a special operation called “Fox Hunt”.