Instagram Influencer Ramon Abbas arrested for massive fraud | Tech Reddy

How much money are you willing to spend on designer clothes, luxury cars, A-list friends, and a social media feed that’s protected with glimpses of unforgivable possessions? A few hundred thousand dollars? Or how about 11 years in prison and $1,732,841 in fines?

That’s the sentence given to Ramon Abbas, known as “Billionaire Gucci Master” or @hushpuppi on Instagram, after pleading guilty to conspiracy to engage in money laundering. Before his arrest in 2020 in Dubai, he had more than 2 million Instagram followers, The Guardian.

Don Alway, assistant director of the Los Angeles FBI office, said in a statement Abbas is “one of the most powerful moneylenders in the world.”

“Abbas used his social media – which has a large following – to gain notoriety and brag about how much money he made by running a business email scam, an online bank account and other online scams that have robbed many victims, helped the North Korean government,” said Alway. “This major sentence is the result of years of cooperation between law enforcement in many countries, and should send a clear warning to criminals around the world that the FBI will seek justice for victims, whether the criminals are operating inside or outside the borders of the United States.”

The tweet may have been deleted
(opens in new tab)

Abbas, who is from Nigeria, did not work hard to make money. He worked with a Canadian man, according to prosecutors, to make money by using internet bank-heists and compromising business emails. In 2019, he helped launder more than $14 million stolen by North Korean activists from a bank in Malta. He also helped launder millions of dollars stolen from a British company, a British football club, a law firm in New York, and one in Qatar that wanted a loan to build a school.

According to VICE News, just a year before his arrest, Abbas released the words: “My story is full of broken episodes, bad decisions and some bad truths. But it’s also filled with great comebacks.” He will be extradited to Nigeria after his sentence.