Hushpuppi’s Instagram account deactivated as sentencing is fixed for November 7
As Nigeria’s Ramon ‘Hushpuppi’ Abbas awaits his sentencing fixed for Monday, November 7, 2022, his Instagram account with over 2 million followers where he displayed his illicit wealth and luxury lifestyle has been deactivated.
When Neusroom searched for the Instagram account on Wednesday, November 2, 2022, we observed the account is no longer available, suggesting that it may have been deactivated.
Before the account was deactivated, some of Hushpuppi’s followers who draw inspiration from his flamboyant lifestyle, camped in the comment section of his posts daily to declare their admiration for him and pray for his freedom.
Court documents obtained by Neusroom in 2020 revealed that he was monitored by the FBI and arrested through his activities on Instagram and Snapchat where he shared his personal affairs with the world.
Meta, the parent company of Instagram, could not be reached for comments to confirm if the company deactivated the account.
Hushpuppi, whose sentencing has been postponed more than five times since July 2020 when he was repatriated to the United States from Dubai, United Arab Emirates where he was arrested in June 2020, will be sentenced on Monday, November 7, 2022, barring any last minute change.
“It (his sentencing) is now set for Nov. 7 — next Monday,” Thom Mrozek, the spokesperson of the United States Attorney Office (USAO) for Central District of California, told Neusroom in an email on Tuesday, November 1, 2022.
He, however, did not give any reasons for the postponement of the sentencing.
Hushpuppi arrived the U.S on Thursday, July 2, 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.
Neusroom had, on Wednesday, January 26, 2022, exclusively reported that Hushpuppi would be sentenced on Valentine’s Day after spending more than 18 months in detention in Dubai, the UAE, and Los Angeles in the US, the hearing was, however, shifted from February 14 to July 11, 2022.
In July 2022, Neusroom also reported that he would be sentenced in September, again, it was shifted to November 4. And now it has been shifted to November 7, and there are possibilities that the sentencing may be shifted again.
Hushpuppi entered into a plea agreement with U.S prosecutors in April 2021, and Mrozek, the DoJ spokesperson, told Neusroom some of the charges against him may be dropped.
Court documents obtained by Neusroom also confirmed that he will only be charged for the ‘Qatari job’. The DoJ, however, said this will only happen if he abides by his plea agreement.
Asked why Hushpuppi chose to plead guilty, his attorney Louis Shapiro who is a top criminal lawyer in California and a former deputy public defender in Los Angeles, told Neusroom in an email correspondence that he would not “comment on cases he personally handles”.
Initially, his alleged crime of conspiracy to engage in money laundering carries a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison but with his guilty plea, he may get a lesser sentence like Invictus Obi who was sentenced to 10 years in jail after pleading guilty to a similar crime in 2020.
