Among almost 2 million targets in a £380 million BEC scamming operation were a Premier league football team, a US lawyer & an international bank. The alleged scammer was arrested in Dubai.
Ramon Olorunwa Abbas, 37, is in court in Chicago, USA Friday – facing up to 20 years prison, accused of trying to steal £100 million from an unnamed Premier League Club. Also, attempting to launder 100s of millions of dollars through business email compromise (BEC) frauds, with a leading US law firm that lost nearly a million dollars in 2019, & an international bank also believed targeted.
‘Hushpuppi’
The Nigerian Instagram ‘influencer’, who has 2.4 million followers, is known on social media as ‘Hushpuppi’. He was arrested in Dubai, UAE, from where he had been posting pictures showing an opulent lifestyle.
The US Department of Justice stated, “Abbas & others further conspired to launder 100s of millions of dollars from other fraudulent schemes & computer intrusions, including one scheme to steal £100 million from an English Premier League soccer club.”
Opulent Lifestyle
An affidavit supplied with the criminal complaint stated, “The FBI’s investigation has revealed that Abbas finances this opulent lifestyle through crime, & that he is one of the leaders of a transnational network that facilitates computer intrusions, fraudulent schemes (including BEC schemes), & money laundering, targeting victims around the world in schemes designed to steal 100s of millions of dollars.”
Business Email Compromise
Chris Ross, SVP, Barracuda Networks commented, “This incident is another reminder that cyber threats such as Business Email Compromise (BEC) schemes remain active & prevalent, posing a huge risk to unsuspecting organisations. In many cases, the hacker creates a fraudulent, but realistic-looking, email request for payment of an invoice or transfer of funds.
Transfer
The perpetrator will often use the company logo, email signature & fake purchase order number in their correspondence to increase the likelihood of being believed. The victim, assuming they are just doing their job, makes the transfer in response to the request, often repeating the process over time, leading to the company losing 10s of 1,000s, if not millions of pounds.
“This type of spear-phishing attack has been trending, with Barracuda Sentinel detecting 467,825 spear-phishing email attacks between March 1 & March 23, a 667% increase. Tackling this issue requires companies to invest in the very latest email protection systems & also ensure that every employee is acutely aware of these scams & how they operate.”
FBI Director
On the Dubai Police Facebook page the Director of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Christopher Wray praised the Dubai Police General HQ, in combating trans-national organised cybercrime including the recent arrest of Abbas & Olalekan Jacob Ponle aka “Woodberry” who were taken down in operation “Fox Hunt 2”.
Dubai Police
The suspects were captured in a series of co-ordinated raids by 6 SWAT teams from Dubai Police, with the Director of Dubai CID, Brigadier Jamal Salem Al Jallaf saying that the raid resulted in confiscating incriminating documents of a planned worldwide fraud worth AED 1.6 billion (US$ 435 million/ almost £380 million).
He concluded, “The team also seized more than AED 150 million (US$40.9 million/£32 million) in cash and13 luxury cars with an estimated value of AED 25 million (US$ 6.8 million/ £5.4 million).
The amazing story also was featured on CNN worldwide.
