, a prolific crime in which criminals hack into email accounts, pretend to be someone they are not and fool victims into wiring money where it does not belong. In 2019, he helped launder some £12.8 million stolen by North Korean hackers from a bank in Malta, funnelling the money through banks in Romania and Bulgaria, prosecutors said. He also helped launder millions of pounds stolen from a British company and a professional football club in the UK, got a New York-based law firm to transfer nearly £806,000 to a criminal account and acknowledged helping to defraud someone in Qatar who sought a £13 million loan to build a school. On Monday, Abbas was sentenced to 11 years and three months in federal prison and was ordered to pay more than £1.5 million in restitution to two victims. Ghaleb Alaumary, 37, of Mississauga in Ontario, Canada, was charged separately. He pleaded guilty in 2020 to one count of conspiracy to engage in money laundering, prosecutors said. Alaumary was sentence){kind=link}
NEWS… BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT
A notorious Nigerian social media influencer described as ‘one of the most prolific money launderers in the world’ has been jailed for more than 11 years in the US.
Ramon Abbas, 40, flaunted his lavish lifestyle on an Instagram page under the name ‘Ray Hushpuppi’, which boasted nearly three million followers, before he was arrested in 2020 in Dubai.
The account showed him travelling by private jet, driving ultra-expensive cars and wearing high-end clothes and watches.
But Don Alway, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, said it was all bankrolled by funnelling millions of dollars from online scams through accounts all over the globe.