Dubai Police hand over Hushpuppi to FBI in the US

Instagram scamster Hushpuppi has been handed over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the US, Dubai Police said on Thursday.

According to a statement, Christopher Wray, Director of FBI, praised the role of Dubai Police in arresting Raymond Abbas (Hushpuppi) and Olalekan Jacob Ponle aka Woodbery, and handing them over to the US.

“Director of FBI expressed his thanks for the exceptional efforts (of Dubai Police) in fighting organised cyber crimes and arresting Hushpuppi and Woodbery,” Dubai Police said in the statement.

According to Dubai Police, Hushpuppi and Woodbery, wanted for a series of crimes like money-laundering, fraud, hacking of websites and accounts, impersonation, banking fraud etc.

Hushpuppi and Woodbery were arrested with 10 other suspects on allegations of fraud, involving huge money.

AED 150 million ($40.9 million) in Cash Was Seized From Hushpuppi and Gang - Dubai CID

Their arrest in an operation codenamed Fox Hunt 2 came after about four months of painstaking investigations into their activities., during which their social media activities were monitored by the highly trained police unit.

The video posted by the Dubai Media Office said their police were able to track the locations of the suspected fraudsters using their social media activities.

Police said the raid resulted in the seizure of incriminating documents pertaining to a well-planned international fraud worth Dh1.6 billion – N169 billion.

They were accused of leading an “international” online fraud network that was committing crimes outside the UAE, including money-laundering, cyber fraud, hacking, criminal impersonating, scamming individuals, banking fraud and identity theft.

“The team also seized more than AED 150 million ($40.9 million) in cash, 13 luxury cars with an estimated value of AED 25 million ($6.8 million) obtained from fraud crimes, and confiscated 21 computer devices, 47 smartphones, 15 memory sticks, five hard disks containing 119,580 fraud files as well as addresses of 1,926,400 victims”, director of Dubai CID, Brigadier Jamal Salem Al Jallaf said.

In May, the United States Secret Service said in a memo that fraudsters were targeting American states. Their operations, the Secret Service said, was traced to Nigeria.

A California-based cybersecurity firm Agari said on Tuesday, May 19, that “some if not all” of those who committed the fraud are part of a Nigerian fraud group, Scattered Canary.