Hushpuppi ordered to pay $1.7m in restitution to two victims as he’s sentenced to 11 years in prison
A United States District Court for the Central District of California, on Monday, November 7, 2022, ordered Nigeria’s Ramon ‘Hushpuppi’ Abass Olorunwa to pay back $1,732,841 in restitution to two of his fraud victims as he is handed 11 years in prison.
Hushpuppi’s sentencing on Monday brings an end to 28 months of trial since his arrest in June 2020 at his Dubai hotel apartment.
According to court documents exclusively obtained by Neusroom on Monday night, the verdict was issued by Justice Otis Wright II, who ordered Hushpuppi to pay $922,857 in restitution to a New York-based law firm victim and $809,983 in restitution to a businessperson in Qatar.
“This significant sentence is the result of years’ worth of collaboration among law enforcement in multiple countries and should send a clear warning to international fraudsters that the FBI will seek justice for victims, regardless of whether criminals operate within or outside United States borders,” said Don Alway, the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office.
In an August 2021 report, Neusroom had predicted that Hushpuppi would likely be sentenced to 10 years in jail after his guilty plea in April 2021.
Hushpuppi and 12 others were arrested during operation Fox Hunt 2, a coordinated raid on his Dubai hotel residence on June 10, 2020. He was transferred to the U.S in July 2020 to face criminal charges alleging he conspired to launder hundreds of millions of dollars from business email compromise (BEC) frauds and other scams, including schemes targeting a U.S. law firm, a foreign bank and an English Premier League soccer club.
While in detention in Los Angeles, more revelations emerged about the scale of his atrocities, following statements from law enforcers, and exclusive conversations between the Department of Justice and Neusroom.
Hushpuppi conspired with Ghaleb Alaumary, 37, of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, a convicted money launderer, to launder funds derived from various crimes, including bank cyber-heists, business email compromise (BEC) schemes and other online frauds. BEC schemes typically involve gaining unauthorized access to a business email account and attempting to trick a victim business into making an unauthorized wire transfer.
In January 2019, Hushpuppi conspired with Alaumary to launder funds stolen from a bank in Malta by providing account information for banks in Romania and Bulgaria. The United States has charged North Korean hackers with committing the bank cyber-heist in Malta, and alleged that those funds were destined for the North Korean government. Abbas has admitted that the intended loss with respect to the Maltese bank was approximately $14.7 million.
In May 2019, Hushpuppi conspired with Alaumary to launder millions of pounds stolen from a professional soccer club in the United Kingdom as well as a British company. In connection with that scheme, Hushpuppi provided Alaumary with details for a bank account in Mexico that “could handle millions and not block,” according to court documents.
Court documents sent to Neusroom by the DoJ in July 2021 also revealed that Hushpuppi connived with one Vincent Chibuzo and a 29-year-old Kenyan Abdulrahman Juma to defraud a Qatari businessman of more than $1.1 million. The businessman was seeking lenders to fund a new children’s school in Qatar when he fell victim to Hushpuppi’s alleged global fraud scheme.
He was accused of using accomplices to launder the illicit funds in banks all over the world and using $230,000 (proceeds from the fraud) to purchase a luxury Richard Mille RM11-03 watch. He posted a photo of himself on Instagram wearing the watch, with the hashtag “#Rm1103,” on January 13, 2020.
Court documents said Hushpuppi pleaded guilty to this crime on April 20, 2021, and according to his plea agreement with the USAO, prosecutors have “agreed to not further criminally prosecute defendant for conspiracy to engage in money laundering, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, mail fraud, and bank fraud, wire fraud; bank fraud, money laundering; engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity); aggravated identity theft.”
“If Abbas abides by the terms of his plea agreement, we have agreed to dismiss those additional charges that are contained in the “information” when the case concludes, which would be after his sentencing,” a spokesperson of the USAO for the Central District of California, Thom Mrozek, told Neusroom in July 2021.
Neusroom believes Hushpuppi’s lead attorney John Iweanoge, a Nigerian-American lawyer, must have advised him to plead guilty after the option worked for another Nigerian fraudster Obiwanne ‘Invictus Obi’ Okeke who Iweanoge also represented during his trial before an Eastern Virginia District Court. Invictus Obi was also handed 10-year jail term after pleading guilty to his crimes of engaging in a multi-year global business email and computer hacking scheme that caused a staggering $11 million in losses to his victims.
Hushpuppi didn’t go down alone. In his guilty plea in April 2021, he also indicted Abba Kyari, a Deputy Commissioner of Police and one of Nigeria’s most celebrated police officers credited with leading some of Nigeria Police Force’s biggest victories against kidnapping, armed robbery and banditry.
In court documents obtained by Neusroom from the U.S Attorney’s Office (USAO) for Central District of California (Los Angeles), Kyari was accused of obtaining funds from Hushpuppi to arrest and keep one of his allies Vincent Chibuzo in prison for at least a month for interfering with his fraud scheme.
Also indicted were Juma of Kenya, Rukayat Motunrayo Fashola and Bolatito Tawakalitu Agbabiaka who are based in the U.S and have since been arrested. Abba Kyari is also behind bars in Nigeria as the government considers handing him over to U.S authorities while Vincent Kelly Chibuzo is still at large.
Before his arrest on June 10, 2020, Hushpuppi portrayed himself as a symbol of hope and inspiration to many Nigerian youths, a fashion and style artist with a penchant for rocking the latest and most expensive designer wears. A man in extreme wealth who rose from living in Lagos slums to sleeping in the best hotels in Dubai and flying in private jets.
A Neusroom expose on Hushpuppi in July 2020 revealed how he started internet fraud from a Lagos slum before travelling out of the country where he lived a lavish lifestyle posting photos of exotic cars, designer clothes and shoes, , jewelry, wine, and women on his Instagram page from his luxury hotel apartment at the Palazzo Versace Dubai.
