News Analysis: Why the Hushpuppi saga may not end soon
The world over, when crime suspects are arrested, what follows is their trial and conviction. But after spending almost 14 months in detention, there’s still no trial date in sight for Nigeria’s Ramon ‘Hushpuppi’ Abbas. Meaning he may spend more time in detention before he finally goes to court, Neusroom gathered.
Nearly 14 months on from the day Hushpuppi arrived in the U.S in July 2020, his trial has been shifted three times (from November to May, to July 27 and no new date yet). He has changed his first legal team consisting of Gal Pissetzky and Vicki Podberesky. He’s now being represented by Louis Shapiro, a top criminal lawyer in California and a former deputy public defender in Los Angeles.
Neusroom has been following Hushpuppi’s case from the time of his arrest in June 2020, his extradition to the U.S in July 2020, and we were the first news platform in the world to do a special expose on his early life. From records, investigations and exclusive conversations with the U.S Department of Justice in the last 10 months, we can confirm that there is a distinction between his case and others who have been arrested and convicted in the U.S for fraud.
The DoJ blamed the delay in his trial on the COVID-19 pandemic that imposed lockdowns and social distancing on the world.
“Trials have not resumed in this district, so he will NOT be going to trial next week (May 4, 2021),” Thom Mrozek, Director of Media Relations, U.S Attorney’s Office, Central District of California (Los Angeles), told Neusroom in an email on April 30, 2021. But pundits believe Hushpuppi is deliberately being kept in custody to scoop more information that will lead to the arrest of other leaders of a transnational network that facilitates computer intrusions, fraudulent schemes (including BEC schemes), and money laundering, targeting victims around the world.
Aside from those arrested alongside Hushpuppi in Dubai, since his arrest, three North Korean military hackers – Jon Chang Hyo; Kim Il, and Park Jin Hyok, 36; a Canadian-American Ghaleb Alaumary; a Kenyan Abdulrahman Imraan Juma; and three Nigerians, Yusuf Adeyinka Anifowoshe of Brooklyn, New York, Rukayat Motunraya Fashola of Valley Stream, New York, and Bolatito Tawakalitu Agbabiaka of Linden, New Jersey, who are all alleged to be Hushpuppi’s allies in fraud have all been arrested and more will likely be arrested as long as Hushpuppi keeps singing.
In February 2021, when Ghaleb Alaumary, Hushpuppi’s co-conspirator, who’s described as a prolific money launderer for hackers pleaded guilty to the charge, Neusroom predicted that Hushpuppi may also agree to plead guilty following the overwhelming evidence against him.
Why he’s been in detention for 14 months without trial
Hushpuppi’s case is taking the route of prolonged investigation and interrogation without trial. This is mainly common in the case of suspected ISIS fighters detained in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba without trial.
The U.S government has a practice of keeping terrorist suspects in indefinite wartime detention without trial. Its Supreme Court empowered it to do so in a 2004 ruling. The practice was initiated by the administration of ex-president George W. Bush after the 9/11 attack.
In Ben Taub’s 2020 Pulitzer prize-winning profile of Mohamedou Salahi for the New Yorker, the Mauritanian, spent 14 years at Guantánamo Bay without being charged for a crime. During the time he spent in detention, interrogators scooped information from him to help them understand the operations of ISIS and prosecute key actors.
How long will Hushpupi be kept without trial?
It remains unclear when his trial will commence. Mrozek told Neusroom he could not confirm.
In his plea agreement, he has agreed to any form of trial, either virtual or physical. Suggesting that he is also tired of detention without trial.
When another Nigerian Obiwanne ‘Invictus Obi’ Okeke was arrested in August 2019 for wire fraud, his trial and conviction lasted 18 months, but from all indications, Hushpuppi’s journey will be much longer.
What will he be charged for after his guilty plea?
In court documents obtained by Neusroom from the DoJ, Hushpuppi entered into a plea agreement with U.S prosecutors in April 2021.
In 2020, he was accused of laundering hundreds of millions of dollars from business email compromise (BEC) frauds and other scams, including schemes targeting a U.S. law firm, a bank in Malta and an English Premier League soccer club. Mrozek told Neusroom some of those charges may be dropped and the court document 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”.
How long will he spend in prison?
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. When Invictus Obi pleaded guilty to a similar crime in 2020, he was sentenced to 10 years in jail.
So how many more suspects does the U.S want to arrest before commencing Hushpuppi’s trial? Who are the transnational fraud leaders they are tracking with information from Hushpuppi and where are they located? What does he stand to gain from the new plea agreement aside from a reduced sentence? Will he be deported as the plea agreement says? All these remain unclear.
