This archive report was first published on 4 July 2020.
On July 3, 2020, Ramon Olorunwa Abbas, a Nigerian man known as 'Hushpuppi,' appeared in a federal court in Chicago, Illinois, to face charges of conspiring to launder hundreds of millions of dollars.
According to the Department of Justice, Abbas, 37, is accused of being one of the leaders of a global network that uses computer intrusions, business email compromise (BEC) schemes, and money laundering to steal hundreds of millions of dollars.
Abbas was arrested last month by law enforcement officials in the United Arab Emirates and transferred to the US this week by the FBI.
Prosecutors allege that Abbas and his co-conspirators used BEC schemes to defraud a client of a New York-based law firm out of nearly $1 million in 2019.
Abbas is also accused of conspiring to steal $124 million from an English Premier League soccer club and $14.7 million from a foreign financial institution in 2019.
Abbas is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, Chicago, and will be transferred to Los Angeles in the coming weeks, according to the Justice Department.
If convicted of money laundering, Abbas could face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
