‘Billionaire Gucci Master’ Detained By FBI Over Alleged $124 Million Premier League Fraud

An English Premier League football club has become embroiled in a criminal complaint brought against self-proclaimed ‘Billionaire Gucci Master’ Ramon Abbas, a Nigerian influencer with over 2.5 million followers on Instagram. (Forbes does not currently include Abbas on our list of the World’s Billionaires.)

Abbas, also known as hushpuppi, has built a global following from posting pictures of his lavish spending on cars, watches, designer clothes, and private jets. His lifestyle has made him a popular figure on a variety of social media platforms including Snapchat and Instagram. Abbas’ lawyer tells Forbes that his client is “an entrepreneur” who made his money legitimately through “real estate” and his work “promoting brands” as an “Instagram personality.”
Abbas’ wealth and fame has also seen him rub shoulders with the new-monied elite. The influencer is seen on Instagram with Chelsea’s Premier League and England star Tammy Abraham, and Aston Villa’s England U-21 star Ezri Konsa — both players signed shirts for Abbas, “To my big bro” posted in February this year.

However, Abbas’s life of luxury was put on hold in late June after the 37-year-old was arrested in Dubai, UAE, and arrived in the U.S. on Friday July 3 to face criminal charges over allegations he has made “hundreds of millions of dollars” from business email compromise frauds and other scams.

The FBI’s affidavit alleges that Abbas “conspired to launder funds stolen in a $14.7 million cyber-heist from a foreign financial institution.” The date and amount mentioned in the affidavit matches that of the attack on Malta’s Bank of Valletta in February 2019. The attack was of such seriousness in Malta that Prime Minister Joseph Muscat was forced to address parliament over what the Times of Malta described as the “creation of false international payments that saw €13 million transferred to banks in four countries.” The amounts were the amounts reportedly “traced” and “reversed” and none of the bank’s customers lost their money. The U.S. Department of Justice did not name Bank of Valletta in the affidavit and says it is unable to give further details. The Bank of Valletta has not responded to emails from Forbes.

The FBI also alleges a New York-based law firm was defrauded out of approximately $922,800 through a combination of computer hacking and social engineering to gain access to a business’ email account, send fraudulent emails to receive an unauthorized wire transfer of money. Abbas is accused of laundering $396,050 of the funds alongside two co-conspirators, one of whom was in Los Angeles at the time.

But perhaps most notably, Abbas is accused of a “scheme to steal” $124 million from an English Premier League soccer club in May 2019. The U.S. Department of Justice is at this time unable to confirm further details of the club in question. However, at $124 million the sum on the affidavit is larger than any single player transfer ever paid by any team in the league, and details are scant on how exactly a figure of such size could be obtained through the methods cited in the affidavit.

A Life Of Less Luxury
According to the Bureau of Prisons website, Abbas is currently being held in MCC Chicago pending a bail hearing. The police press statement following his arrest states that if convicted of conspiracy to engage in money laundering, Abbas would face a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison. A hearing in Chicago on Monday will determine if Abbas will be detained pending trial.

Mr Abbas’s legal representative, Gal Pissetzky of Pissetzky & Berliner, told Forbes that his client is “Absolutely not guilty of [the] charges they are accusing him of,” adding, “[Abbas] was running a legitimate business and a very legitimate Instagram account and did not take part in any scam or fraud.”

Asked how Abbas paid for his lifestyle, Pissetzky tells Forbes, “He's an entrepreneur. He has real estate involvement ... [he's] an Instagram personality. He was promoting brands and that's how he was very legitimately making his money.”

On his relationship with Premier League footballers Tammy Abraham and Ezri Konsa, his lawyer says, “Mr Abbas is friends with a lot of people. Somebody who has that many followers – obviously he knows and has friends in a lot of places ... it's all legitimate.”

How It Works
The FBI eventually caught up with Abbas after a federal search warrant accessed data and conversations concerning the alleged laundering on an accused coconspirator’s iPhone. The FBI linked the conversations with a phone number for the contact name “Hush,” to Snapchat user “hushpuppi5,” which listed the Snapchat contact name “The Billionaire Gucci Master!!!” the name used by Abbas on Instagram until last year, according to a report in the Times of London following his arrest in late June.

Abbas is in hot water over his alleged ability to find bank accounts within which large sums of money can be placed without setting off alerts to the authorities. He is not accused of hacking, but rather, according to the affidavit, providing “bank accounts” that Abbas “anticipated would each receive ... the fraudulently obtained funds.”

The FBI allege that the conspiracy was to “launder ... tens, and at times hundreds, of millions of dollars that were proceeds of other fraudulent schemes and computer intrusions.”
Abbas is accused in the affidavit of sending alleged “co-conspirators” bank account information for accounts in Romania, Bulgaria, Mexico and Dubai. In one message exchange collected from a co-conspirator’s phone, Abbas allegedly complains about the cost of opening these bank accounts which the FBI allege are called “houses” throughout the exchange. “Bro I can’t keep collecting houses n not give them a feed back n keep asking for more ... This things cost a lot of money now to open.”

Expert Comments
Samantha J Sheen of Ex Ante advisory, a specialist on money laundering flows, tells Forbes that the examples named in the affidavit are “very very clever” by “standing in the universe of legitimate business” they can bypass many hurdles and “simply borrow the skin of the business to redirect funds” at the closure of a transaction or settlement. She adds that for the kinds of firms targeted the movement of the sums mentioned “would not have looked unusual.”

However, addressing the rather staggering attempt to defraud a Premier League Football club of $124 million, Sheen says the attempt really is an anomaly. “I think they got a little overly ambitious and greedy on that one,” she adds, “That amount is huge.” With very few player transfer fees approaching that size, the sum is an anomaly even for the 20 hyper wealthy Premier League clubs. Sheen adds, “I just looked at that and thought, 'you got to be dreaming buddy if you thought you were going to pull that one off’.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddawkins/2020/07/09/billionaire-gucci-master-detained-by-fbi-over-alleged-124-million-premier-league-fraud/#4540997a3a34

Speechless!
Greed a deadly sin and will fall a man