Hushpuppi jailed for 11 years in US

Hushpuppi, a Nigerian Instagram influencer has been jailed for more than 11 years in the US for his role in an international fraud syndicate.

Hushpuppi, whose real name is Ramon Abbas, was also ordered to pay $1,732,841 (£1,516,182) in restitution to two victims.

The influencer rose to fame flaunting his wealthy lifestyle on his page, which boasted 2.8 million followers.

But it all came crashing down when he was arrested in Dubai two years ago.

According to Don Alway, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, Abbas had – behind the glitz of his account – become “one of the most prolific money launderers in the world”.

“Abbas leveraged his social media platforms… to gain notoriety and to brag about the immense wealth he acquired by conducting business email compromise scams, online bank heists and other cyber-enabled fraud that financially ruined scores of victims and provided assistance to the North Korean regime,” Mr Alway said in a court document on Monday.

Abbas pleaded guilty to money laundering last year, admitting attempting to steal more than $1.1m from someone who wanted to fund a new children’s school in Qatar. Court documents in California say he played a key role in the scheme, playing “the roles of bank officials and creating a bogus website”.

He also admitted to “several other cyber and business email compromise schemes that cumulatively caused more than $24 million in losses”, the US justice department said.

Among them was a 2019 scheme, which plunged the European island of Malta into chaos as payment systems shut down after he tried to launder €13m ($13m) stolen by a gang of North Korean hackers from the Maltese Bank of Valletta.

At one point on Instagram, Abbas said he was a real estate developer and had a category of videos called “Flexing” – social media lingo for showing off.

In 2020, he renewed his lease for another year at the exclusive Palazzo Versace apartments in Dubai under his real name and phone number.

“Thank you, Lord, for the many blessings in my life. Continue to shame those waiting for me to be shamed,” he captioned an Instagram picture of a Rolls-Royce just a fortnight before he was arrested.

Those who knew Lagos-born Abbas before his transformation into Hushpuppi allege these are not the first scams he has carried out.

He allegedly started his fraudulent lifestyle as a “Yahoo boy” – the Nigerian term for men who commit romance fraud by stealing other people’s identities online and swindling their none-the-wiser lovers out of money.

Charges, guilty plea, appeals for mercy

Hushpuppi was arrested in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, and flown to the United States in June 2020 to face charges of multi-million dollars fraudulent schemes including “bank cyber-heists”.

US authorities said Hushpuppi and his conspirators, through an extensive cyber-fraud, targeted multiple victims, including a bank in Malta, a law firm in New York, two companies in the United Kingdom, and a businessperson in Qatar.

Hushpuppi, who initially denied the charges, made a turnaround to enter into a plea bargain agreement with the US authorities in July 2021, in the hope of getting a light sentence.

He confessed to conspiring with multiple persons within and outside the US to launder the proceeds of the fraudulent scheme perpetrated against persons and businesses in different countries.

The offence ordinarily attracts a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison, among other punishments including full restitution

The US government, in its pre-sentencing filings, pushed for at least 11 years jail term for him.

But, in his plea for leniency, Hushpuppi, without suggesting any number of years of jail term to the judge, pleaded for a sentence “to a term of imprisonment below the calculated range dictated by statute.”

The court has since received a flurry of letters addressed to the judge from Hushpuppi’s family and religious circles, also pleading for mercy on his behalf.

Wife’s plea for mercy

According to Premium Times, In her undated letter pleading for mercy on behalf of her husband, Regina Manneh, who is the mother of Hushpuppi’s youngest child, said his absence from home had left a void in the family.

Ms Manneh is believed to have lived with Hushpuppi and their son, Raymond, in Dubai. Hushpuppi’s two older children lives with their separate mothers in the US and the United Kingdom (UK).

Ms Manneh said she and her four-year-old son were on a visit to see relatives in Sweden when Hushpuppi was arrested in June 2020.

“When I heard about his arrest, my son and I were in Sweden visiting family. Unfortunately, there was a lockdown due to Covid and before we got back to Dubai, he was already extradited to the USA so there was no chance for Raymond to see his father,” she wrote.

In her impassioned letter which is suspected to have been sent to the judge in October, she described Hushpuppi as “a very active father” with whom his son spent a lot of time going out and doing activities, including watching movies.

Hushpuppi’s incarceration, she said, “has had a huge impact on us as a family but mostly on our 4year-old son.”

Ms Manneh, who said she had been heart-broken by the turn of events, noted that Raymond “constantly asks for his father’s whereabouts.”

“As a mother, this breaks my heart for my son because he is at an age where he is aware of things and that his father is not with him physically.”

She said whenever Raymond had the opportunity to video call his father, “he constantly asks his father if he is on the way”.

“Usually after the call ends, Raymond gets emotional and just hugs me. And all I can do is offer emotional support to my son that is struggling to navigate his feelings during these hard times,” the mother said.

She said her plea for mercy for Hushpuppi was not just for herself, but “for my son and his family”.

She said Hushpuppi’s whole family depended on him financially and emotionally.

“Not having Ramon here has left a void in Raymond which saddens me,” she said.

She said she had had to start working overtime “in order to be able to pay for our child’s private school fees and his needs which has been a challenging task.”

“Ramon is a man that loves his family and would do anything for them. He is not perfect, but he is a good man that has made mistakes and he has taken responsibility. I beg this court to have mercy on him not only for me but for his children,” she wrote.

Imams’ pleas

Two Islamic clerics in their separate letters painted a portrait of Hushpuppi as a kind, loving, and generous man, whose criminal conduct alleged in the charges levelled against him, came to them as a rude shock.

Mr Olopede of Madrasat Ridwanu L’Hai-L-Arobiyat Wal Islamiyat, Imisi-Oluwa Mosque, said in his 8 October letter that he had known Hushpuppi for 15 years as a frequent donator to the mosque.

In his separate letter dated 4 October, Mr Abdulrasak of the Madrasatul Ahlul-Basit Islamiya, in Maiduguri Borno State, described Hushpuppi as a true philanthropist, although the cleric did not indicate how long he had known him.

Hushpuppi, a Muslim, was born and raised in Lagos before his sojourn to Malaysia and then to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirate (UAE), where he was arrested and flown to the US in June 2020.

His possible connection to the Lagos mosque is therefore understandable.

But his account of his personal history detailed in his court filings gave no hint of how he might have been connected to the Maiduguri community, in Borno State.

Yet, Mr Abdulrasak said Hushpuppi was known to his congregation in Maiduguri as a man that had lent “hands of assistance to many in our community”.

Among Hushpuppi’s philanthropic gestures, according to the cleric, included provision of borehole and water well, payment of school fees, feeding programmes, and rendering assistance to the needy, widows and orphans “on several occasions”.

“We hereby plead and pray to your honour to kindly put the above stated into consideration when tempering justice,” he wrote.

Also attesting to Hushpupi’s kind-heartedness that he was known for in the Lagos mosque, Mr Olopede said the defendant “made himself a willing and available example of hard work and humility for teenagers in his immediate neighbourhood”.

He said the defendant provided leadership and mentorship to friends and older adults alike, even as he sought direction for his own life.

“Ramon would usually contribute his part to anything that concerns the mosque, he would offer financial support at every given time when the mosque was holding events,” the cleric wrote.

He said Hushpuppi had at different times, donated to the mosque and bought a generator for the mosque.

Read Also: Hushpuppi: I’ll pay back $1.7million restitution despite benefitting only $300,000

He added that Hushpuppi’s involvement in criminal activities “came as a rude shock.”

“It was surprising that a promising young individual with a tremendous attitude towards work could be doing anything shady,” he added.

The cleric said he understood “the enormity of the crime” Hushpuppi committed but called on the judge “to evoke the emotional part of you and beg that you temper justice with mercy.”

He noted that he had been informed of how Hushpuppi had been “cooperative and well-behaved” during this trial.

“I hope the remorse he has shown in the last years makes it a worthy recourse to getting a reduced sentence,” he added.