This is a real life story about the impact of social media. An ordinary guy famous who became filthy rich and extremely popular only for a couple of years with his lifestyle on Instagram, was caught and arrested in Dubai by the FBI for internet scamming.
In this video we follow the “fairy tale” story of the 37-years old Ramon Olorunwa Abbas "hushpuppi" or just "Hush" as he was known by his 2.4 million Instagram followers.
He was born in Lagos, Nigeria in the family of a cab driver and a mother who sold bread on the street, he was washing cars for a living. It was not a surprise that he had a dream for a better life. One day Ramon was contacted by a company named Yahoo Yahoo. Imitating the name of the sole internet provided in Nigeria, this was the moment when everything went into the wrong direction. The guy became involved in a very simple scamming scheme: asking money from people in the States pretending to be an American soldier sent to the field overseas.
But he didn’t stop there; he took his affairs to a next level and met up with CD scammers in South Africa who taught him how to increase his wealth and how to target big companies, law firms and even an English Premier League Football club. Meanwhile his Instagram popularity started growing: pictures with golden Rolex, Rolls Royces, private jets, Fendi clothes and more and more of his glamorous lifestyle. He moved his business to Malaysia and himself to Dubai where he continued with posts and pictures. Or in other words his wealth was estimated at 4 billion dollars. When people asked him where the money came from, he claimed that he was a real estate developer. Somewhere here the FBI started questioning and observing the famous Hush Puppy from Lagos. And of course, they contacted Instagram and Snapchat for obtaining his records and contacts in order to get evidence to charge him.
The investigators wired him and metuculously followed his posts. They found out that Ramon and his entire team were scamming people and corporations with making between 1 to 5 mln dollars per week. In June 2020 everything came into life. Abbas was arrested in Dubai with 40 million dollars in cash, 47 smart phones and 13 expensive cars! He was expelled and transferred first to Chicago and later to Los Angeles to face criminal allegations. This is how the modern Cinderella story ends: in jail.
