FBI Finally Solve The $1.6 Billion Instagram Scam

[Music] on his instagram private jets fast cars and throwing money into the air like confetti were only a few of the posts real estate mogul and social media influencer hush puppy was known for making little did he know he was leaving a digital trail for all us here at the fbi and that flaunting led us to the truth a massive money laundering scam in total he had stolen 1.6 billion in united arab emirates durham it's a crime that will leave you speechless i know i was here's the scoop on just how he did it what he was spending all that money on and how he was finally caught sometimes things can get pretty slow here at the federal bureau of investigation i know growing up i thought it would be like i saw in the movies you know arresting the criminal masterminds of the world and bringing them to justice look here's the truth about the job not all cases have stories worthy of worldwide news coverage spoiler alert many times this line of work is a nine to five like any other with a lot of paperwork but sometimes there's a case that's so out of this world that we feel we've earned our sixty six thousand dollars per year salary hush puppy was one such case here's a bit of backstory on hush puppy in case you didn't know i know i didn't but frankly i'm not on instagram all that much his real name ramon abbas he is a social media influencer and a self-proclaimed real estate mogul from nigeria for what it's worth he definitely knows how to play the social media game mr abbas has over 2.5 million followers and at 37 years old he has made millions of dollars dollars he now very publicly spends and posts all sorts of lavish lifestyle pictures to the internet and when i say lavish i definitely mean it common posts for mr hush puppy shows him standing in front of what we can only assume are private jets going on huge shopping sprees where he is seen splurging on clothes from gucci versace and vendi where shirts can cost 1 000 or more oh and of course tons of photos of him in front of a multitude of super fast and super expensive cars some of his favorite driving machines are a 300 000 rolls royce or his 200 000 ferrari but he also lived in an incredibly expensive and exclusive palazzo versace in dubai he even has videos online of him taking off from a helicopter right from his home on the waterfront basically this man did everything he could to let people know he was rich very very rich and hush puppy soon learned that his talent for curating a social media following i mean who wouldn't want to live vicariously through this man's millionaire lifestyle would give us here at the fbi everything we could ever need to secure his arrest see here's the thing about hush puppy he made all of his money illegally by a scheme called money laundering the idea behind money laundering is simple basically someone will conceal the real source of their money in hushpuppy's case he had stolen millions from banks private investors and companies by tricking them into putting money into an account that they were then using for their own purchases when our team here the fbi got a chance to look at the evidence we'd collected after his arrest we found phone and email records that contained over a hundred thousand fraud files and over two million addresses that looked to be potential victims the companies that hush puppy targeted spammed over two continents it was a worldwide crime he had stolen 923 000 when a paralegal at a new york law firm wired money into an account that belonged to mr abbas this paralegal had received instructions to wire the money into a certain bank account that abbas and his team tricked them into using and that nine hundred and twenty three thousand dollars was meant to go to a client's real estate refinancing it instead went to anything mr abbas wanted but that's just one instance of abba's manipulation he stole 14.7 million dollars from a foreign financial institution having them send money into a romanian bank account other evidence shows that he also used tricked victims into putting money into united states bank accounts as well arguably his biggest potential scam is when he tried to steal 124 million dollars from an english premier league soccer club luckily all we know about this attempted scam is just that it was an attempt to be honest this kind of criminal activity makes us fbi agents sick to our stomachs last year alone upwards of 1.7 billion dollars were stolen by means of cyber fraud it's an ongoing problem that just doesn't seem to go away like a scar of guilt that won't fade with time it almost seems to get more pronounced as the years roll by and many more harsh weathers of life occur but thankfully hush puppy is one scar that never got to form it doesn't get a chance to fade and it affects innocent people who can have their lives ruined so here's how the arrest went down see ramon abbas unknowingly had given us everything we needed to make the arrest and it was from all those posts that he loved to make on his beloved instagram and other social media platforms i mean the guy called himself billionaire gucci master on snapchat he wasn't one to hide his wealth or his lifestyle but one day he disclosed just a bit too much information it was his birthday and he couldn't wait to make some legendary posts on the gram one such post said started out my day having sushi down in nobu and monte carlo monaco then decided to book a helicopter to have facials at the christian dior spa in paris then ended by day having champagne and gucci then he proceeded to tag posts with hashtag allmine and stand with a number of bentleys mercedes ferraris and rolls royces but right there for all to see was some very key information he had his email and phone number saved to his instagram and when our boys here at the bureau did a little digging we were able to link it to financial transactions and transfers known to be associated with co-conspirators to quote our affidavit the email account also contained emails with attachments relating to wire transfers and large dollar values well one post had a picture of his birthday cake and it had a fendi logo on top our investigators were able to verify his date of birth from a previous u.s visa application we had all we needed july 2nd 2020 we made our move our buddies at the united arab emirates went straight to his dubai apartment and instantly captured mr ramon hushpapi abbas from dubai they sent him to us and now our agents have him secured away at the metropolitan corrections center in chicago after his arrest we seized his assets almost 41 million dollars in cash as well as 13 top of the line luxury vehicles that came to a total worth of 6.8 million dollars we're now in the hands of the fbi sorry ramon you didn't earn it legally the next step for a hush puppy well this cyber criminal will be transferred to los angeles and if he is convicted he should be put away for a very very long time money laundering is a serious offense and when it's in the millions of dollars it's even more serious hush puppy could face a maximum of 20 years in prison and let's not forget all those lavish luxury cars and pristine gucci outfits yeah they're gone you're back to square one mr abbas and good luck having anyone trust you with their money again after the scam you pulled and don't think you're gonna get away with it either recently we've heard defenses like this one from his attorney mr posetsky who says mr abbas is an instagram personality a social media personality of course he poses with high price items because that's what he gets paid to do that's what he has built from growing up very poor in nigeria he was able to develop himself into this very well-known personality with millions of followers on instagram and people seeing him with these louis vuitton bags or clothes or gucci bags and clothes or these fancy cars and they go and want it they want to buy it that's a job today as much as it's hard to imagine that's a full-time job basically this lawyer thinks that by using social media to build a profile of this cyberpunk we're using it to imply more evidence of greater wrongdoing and that we aren't just looking at the evidence right in front of us for his crimes nice try here's the thing this man mr hush puppy was at the top of a massive international global scam it spanned continents and affected a multitude of companies and potentially millions of people his methods were some of the oldest in the book he used business email compromise schemes computer intrusions and of course money laundering to steal over 100 million dollars from unsuspecting companies don't try and tell me that because he flaunted it online doesn't make him a criminal and don't try and say that because his job is to flaunt money that he doesn't have it the evidence is here and if it were up to me hush puppy would get a charlie horse from running right into the slammer for a maximum sentence of 20 years so where does this leave us now if you thought the money scams were a thing of the past and the people getting tricked into putting their funds into foreign bank accounts just didn't happen anymore looks like you were very very wrong it's one of the most common types of criminal activity and unfortunately anyone can fall victim to these horrible crimes and it cannot only ruin businesses but lives the good news is it looks like these scammers can't help but post their ridiculous wealth right on the internet like our friend mr hush puppy here without even realizing it he left us all the evidence we needed so he could march right to his door to all you out there we say stay sharp smart and be cautious when transferring your money oh and you can bet that i'll be on instagram now after this case if only because it's a potential source of valuable information willfully given up by the criminals of the world thanks for watching this episode of the richest we hope you enjoyed it we had a blast making it and imagining what this story would be like from the perspective of an fbi agent if you like the video go ahead and click that like button it helps us out here so much and if you want more wacky stories of the wealthy click subscribe we guarantee you'll get all the info you ever wanted to know on the richest

Channel: TheRichest

Views: 3,842,293

Rating: 4.7643228 out of 5

Keywords: criminal, crime, cyber, cyber crime, cyber attack, hushpuppi, Ramon, Ramon Abbas, Dubai, instagram, Instagram scam, scam, money laundering, millions of dollars, richest, FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Id: ofgPzgN5kwQ

Length: 11min 5sec (665 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 17 2020