On July 27, 2021, Ramon Olorunwa Abbas, also known as Hushpuppi, decided that his best plan would be to avoid spending the rest of his life in prison and plead guilty. I’ve actually never seen a plea agreement with so many redactions, but we can still see SOME of what he’s pleading for in the 29-page plea agreement that was released today on PACER, public access to electronic court records.
“From January 18, 2019 on or about June 9, 2020, Defendant knowingly combined, agreed, and conspired with several other individuals (“co-conspirators”) to engage in financial transactions within and outside the UNITED STATES. involving property that represented the proceeds of wire fraud. …The co-conspirators targeted multiple victims and laundered and/or attempted to launder fraudulently obtained funds, and attempted to be fraudulently obtained, through cyber bank robberies, compromise of Business Email (“BEC”). ) fraud and other fraudulent schemes.”
In particular, he admits to having contributed to money laundering:
- stolen from a bank in Malta (which we know is the Bank of Valletta from public information sources which was hacked by North Korean hackers) and
- BEC funds stolen from a New York State law firm,
- and funds stolen from two companies located in the United Kingdom. (One of which was likely an English Premier League club, based on previous court records.)
“The defendant admits” that he conspired to launder the funds and that he knew they were fraud funds. “The defendant also admits the truth of the allegations contained in overt acts 1 through 17.”
Overt Acts 1-17
What were these Manifest Acts 1 to 17? These come from a previous court file. The first set, Overt Acts 1 – 12, all refer to “UIUC-1” who we believe is Ghaleb Alaumary, then 37 years old, from Mississauga, Canada.
Open Law No. 1 – 18JAN2019 – ABBAS provides bank account information of a bank in Romania to be used to receive a bank transfer of 5 million euros
Manifesto Law No. 2 – 18JAN2019 – ABBAS confirms by email that the Romanian bank account is “for large amounts”
Overt Act 3 – 18JAN2019 – ABBAS confirms that it will immediately clear the funds from the Romanian account.
Overt Act 4 – 10FEB2019 – ABBAS opens another bank account, this time in Bulgaria, to receive an additional 5 million euros.
Overt Act 5 – 12FEB2019 – ABBAS is informed that the first 500,000 euros have been deposited in Romania and confirms that he will inform his people.
Overt Act 6 – 12FEB2019 – ABBAS confirms that it is ready to receive more funds into the Romanian account. “Yes please”
Overt Act 7 – 12FEB2019 – ABBAS sends screenshot of Romanian bank account to UICC-1, showing IBAN numbers, account numbers and account balance.
Overt Act 8 – 13FEB2019 – ABBAS sends new screenshot of Romanian bank account to UICC-1.
Overt Act 9 – 10MAR2019 – UICC-1 asks for a bank account in Dubai that can receive “5 million” saying “Brother I need it now or we will lose our chance please.” ABBAS sends him information from a bank account in Dubai.
Overt Act 10 – 08MAY2019 – UICC-1 asks for an account that can “handle millions and not block” and Hushpuppi gives him details of a bank account in Mexico.
Overt Act 11 – 13MAY2019 – UICC-1 informs ABBAS that the Mexican bank account will receive 100 million pounds from an English Premier League club and 200 million pounds from a victimized British company and wants to know if it can proceed. Abbas appears to express concern about this, saying that these accounts “now cost a lot of money to open.”
Overt Act 12 – 13MAY2019 – UICC-1 tells ABBAS he has ’10 more things to do’ after job at Premier League club and says he will have to use each bank account for 2 contracts.
Overt Act 13 – 15OCT2019 – Abbas “or a co-conspirator” tricks the victims’ law firm into sending $922,857.76 from his Quontic Bank account in New York to a Chase account.
Overt Act 14 – 17OCT2019 – ABBAS sends a screenshot to UICC-1 showing a bank transfer of $396,050 from the Chase account to a CIBC account in the name of UICC-2.
Overt Act 15 – 17OCT2019 – UICC-2 was in California and informed by UICC-1 to look for the wire transfer to the CIBC account
Overt Act 16 – 17OCT2019 – UICC-2 confirmed receipt of funds
Overt Act 17 – 17OCT2019 – UICC-1 told ABBAS that $396,050 from the Chase account was received into the CIBC account.
The Qatari scam and surveillance
Hushpuppi also admits to conspiring to defraud a Qatari construction company that was seeking funds to build an international school. Hushpuppi used the pseudonym “Malik” and offered to help them open a bank account in the United States where a $15 million loan could be deposited. He arranged for a co-conspirator to open a bank account at Wells Fargo in Canoga Park, California, after setting up a shell company with the Los Angeles County Registrar. Then another accomplice in Nigeria created a fake “power of attorney” document and sent this information to Wells Fargo in December 2019. The victim was convinced she needed to deposit funds into the account in order to obtain the $15 million loan. of dollars. However, after depositing $330,000, Hushpuppi and his colleagues stole the money, sending $230,000 to a Wells Fargo account belonging to one luxury watch seller and $100,000 to a Capital One bank account belonging to another co-conspirator.
As for the $100,000 paid to “Coconspirator D?” Hush asked them to send two cashier’s checks, one for $40,000 and one for $10,000, and use them to buy Hush a St. Kitts passport and a Nevis citizenship and passport. He received his passport in February 2020. The rest of the funds were converted into Naira.
Later, Hush and his accomplices played against the Qatari businessman again and convinced him that he had to pay “taxes” on the imaginary $15,000,000 loan in order to receive it. To pay his taxes, the Qatari victim sent $299,983.58 to a bank account in Kenya.
Penalties for crime
In total, in the plea agreement, Hush admits that he and his co-conspirators stole:
- $14,700,000 from a foreign financial institution
- $7,740,000 from UK victim companies
- $922,857.76 from New York law firm
- and $809,983.58 from Qatari victims.
“The defendant admits that all of the money laundering described above was sophisticated, extensive, and involved multiple individuals.”
In the United States, there are sentencing guidelines that are supposed to be used by the judge to ensure that sentences are standardized and consistent between different courts. These sentencing guidelines are explained in U.S. statutes and every federal court judge and prosecutor is familiar with these guidelines.
The defendant agrees that these are fair interpretations of how to determine a sentence:
- Level of underlying offense: 7 points
- Fraud system outside the United States using sophisticated means: +2 points
- Conviction under 18 USC § 1956 (which is the law on money laundering): + 2 Points
- Sophisticated money laundering: +2 points
- Financial losses between $9.5 million and $25 million: +20 points
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Total Sentencing Guidelines points: 33 points
According to the Sentencing Guidelines table available on the United States Sentencing Commission website, a 33-point offense with no criminal history SHOULD indicate a sentence between 135 and 168 months, or between 11 1/4 and 14 years old.
Both Hushpuppi and his lawyer understood this and signed the plea agreement anyway. While there may be extenuating circumstances behind some of the redacted pages, here is Hushpuppi’s signature for these terms:
However, who can say what else may be said in the plea agreement behind all the redaction marks? Seven pages of the 29-page document look like this!
For comparison, Ghaleb Alaumary, in many ways the man HushPuppi worked for, pleaded guilty to his crimes on November 17, 2020. The sentencing guidelines were similar, but Alaumary received a sentence more severe for the amount of money stolen. He has not yet been sentenced, but according to the sentencing guidelines, Alaumary has an “offense level of 35”, which brings the recommendation to a sentence of 14 to 17.5 years of prison. Alaumary has prior criminal convictions, but those convictions occurred in Canada, and I’m not sure they would change the sentencing guidelines in a U.S. court.
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| Calculating Alaumary’s Guilty Plea Guidelines |