The US government has dismissed claims that the detained Nigerian influencer Ramon Abbas, known as Hushpuppi, executed a $400,000 (£304,000) internet fraud from prison.
On Thursday, a document emerged on social media claiming that the FBI filed new evidence against Hushpuppi on Wednesday for defrauding Americans using prison internet facilities. See article.
However, an official of the US Department of Justice says the US Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles, which filed the case against Hushpuppi, has not filed any such document.
“The document appears to have been fabricated… We have checked with the FBI who supposedly authored the document, and they confirm it is a fake,” an official said.
In a similar development, a cybercrime expert and Director of Research in Computer Forensics at the University of Alabama, Gary Warner, had earlier stated that the document was an edited version of an affidavit filled in June 2020.
“People are asking me if it is true that #Hushpuppi laundered $400,000 in #Stimulus cards from in prison.
“The document they show is an edit of a June 2020 Affidavit. The new version is fake, intended to get people to visit a scammer EIP website,” Warner wrote on his Twitter page.
Hushpuppi is currently facing trial in the U.S for business email compromise frauds and other scams.