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FBI Nabs Nigerian Business Scammer Who Allegedly Cost Victims Millions

posted by martyb on Wednesday July 08 2020, @06:43PM   Printer-friendly
from the REQUEST-FOR-URGENT-BUSINESS-RELATIONSHIP dept.

Freeman writes:

FBI nabs Nigerian business scammer who allegedly cost victims millions:

The US government has gained custody of a Nigerian man who is accused of participating in a massive fraud and money laundering operation. The defendant, Ray "Hushpuppi" Abbas, has amassed 2.4 million followers on Instagram, where he flaunts his access to luxury cars, designer clothing, and private jets. The feds say that he gained this wealth by defrauding banks, law firms, and other businesses out of millions of dollars. He was arrested last month by authorities in the United Arab Emirates, where he had been living.

The FBI's criminal complaint details how the government obtained a wealth of information tying Abbas to his alleged crimes. Abbas was an avid user of American technology platforms, including Instagram, Gmail, iCloud, and Snapchat. Accounts on these platforms were all registered using a handful of common email addresses and phone numbers. Abbas's main email account—rayhushpuppi@gmail.com—included a copy of Abbas' lease at a luxury hotel in Dubai and scans of various government-issued photo IDs under Abbas' name.

Abbas is accused of participating in a number of "business email compromise" scams. By posing as trusted employees or customers of a target organization, Abbas and his fellow fraudsters allegedly tricked employees into sending large sums to bank accounts they controlled.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2020, @10:33PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2020, @10:33PM (#1018405)

    Black man starts getting ahead, Black man gets arrested by USA.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2020, @11:40PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2020, @11:40PM (#1018425)

    JJ & Al will be pushing for new criminal immunity laws for all black people.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 09 2020, @12:21AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 09 2020, @12:21AM (#1018435)

    Just how many ‘whoosh!’ ‘s were you expecting?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 09 2020, @12:54PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 09 2020, @12:54PM (#1018630)

    More like

    Man gets ahead by stealing, man gets arrested fair and square.

    Adding is Black and in USA with today's other news just means this gets extra checking for fair and square.

    The cops may be incompetent for taking such a long time to bother to go after this guy,
    but I see no indication that the cops were not fair and square with him.

    Am I missing something?