Ramon Abbas, 40, was also ordered by a federal judge to pay $1.7 million in restitution to two fraud victims, according to a statement from the US Department of Justice. Abbas was “one of the most prolific money launderers in the world,” Don Alway, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, said in the statement. Prosecutors said Abbas, who is Nigerian, and a Canadian laundered money from various online crimes, including cyber bank robberies and business email compromise, or BEC, a prolific crime in which fraudsters break into email accounts, pretend that he is someone who isn’t tricking victims into wiring money where it doesn’t belong. In 2019, he helped launder $14.7 million stolen by North Korean hackers from a bank in Malta, funneling 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 soccer club in the United Kingdom, had a New York-based law firm transfer nearly $923,000 to a criminal account and admitted in a plea deal that he helped defraud of someone in Qatar who requested a $15 million loan to build a school, federal prosecutors said. At Monday’s sentencing, Abbas was sentenced to 135 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $922,857 in restitution to the law firm and $809,983 in restitution to the victim in Qatar. “By his own admission, over a period of just 18 months the defendant conspired to launder more than $300 million,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum, though they said much of the intended loss “ultimately did not materialize.” . Abbas, who goes by the name Ray Hushpuppi, had more than 2 million followers on Instagram before he was arrested in 2020 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. His social media posts showed him living a life of luxury, with private jets, extremely expensive cars and high-end clothes and watches. Start your day with the top stories from the US, plus the day’s must-reads from across the Guardian Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. “I hope to someday inspire more young people to join me on this path,” read an Instagram post by Abbas, who pleaded guilty in April 2021 to one count of money laundering conspiracy. Ghaleb Alaumary, 37, of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, was charged separately. He pleaded guilty in 2020 to one count of money laundering conspiracy, prosecutors said. He was sentenced to nearly 12 years in federal prison and ordered to pay more than $30 million in restitution.
