Early on Thursday, a report emerged that notorious Fraudster, Ramon Olorunwa Abass alias Hushpuppi committed a $400,000 Fraud from a Jail Cell in the US.
The Report went viral across social media with major news websites rehashing the story.
However, in a drive for accountability, POLITICS NIGERIA decided to further investigate the report knowing fully well how US inmates are not allowed much access to the internet.
CLAIM: A report from NEWSWIRENGR, published on Thursday morning with the headline; “Hushpuppi commits $400k fraud from inside US prison”, appeared on social media. The story was quickly syndicated across several media platforms and social media handles on Twitter and Facebook.
The report claimed that Abass, who is incarcerated, had laundered over $400,000 using credit cards.
“US prosecutors presented documents before the United States District Court of California on Wed 16th March 2022 with fresh evidence indicting HushPuppi of committing fraud and money laundering in U.S Federal correctional facility.”
“Between 28th Jan and 4th Mar 2022, security officers at the US Federal correctional facility, observed more usage of the internet by Hushpuppi. Knowing that Hushpuppi was arrested for internet related crimes, they obtained a warrant to record Hushpuppi activities. A dedicated system was setup for him and his activities were recorded for 7 days.”
“It was found that Hushpuppi was actively buying EIP debit cards from an underground cyber criminal marketplace called StimulusCard (“https://stimuluscard.com/”). While being recorded, Hushpuppi bought a total of 58 EIP debit cards with a total value of $429,800 on the site and laundered the money through one AJ.”
FACT: Speaking to the BBC,Director of Media Relations, United States Attorney’s Office, Central District of California, Mrozek Thom said that the report was FALSE.
“After took a look at the document inside recent media accounts, The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles, that filed the case against Mr. Abbas, filed no such document.
“We have checked with the FBI agent who supposedly authored the document, and it was confirmed to be fake”.
Also a cyber security expert; Gary Warner, has revealed that the document was ‘Fake’. Warner is a Director of Research in Computer Forensics at the University of Alabama. He tweeted on Thursday; “People are asking me if it is true that #Hushpuppi laundered $400,000 in #Stimulus cards from in prison.”
“The document they show is an edit of a June 2020 Affidavit. The new version is fake, intended to get people to visit a scammer EIP website.”
https://twitter.com/GarWarner/status/1504421742432956417?s=20&t=KZkrWVW9IAdgfnM0D_rJ5Q
VERDICT: The Report that Hushpuppi perpetrated a $400,000 fraud from prison is FALSE.
