Dubai Police Extradite Hushpuppi, Woodberry To US

Dubai Police on Thursday, said it has extradited Nigerian fraudster Ramon Abbas, popularly known as Hushpuppi, to the United States.

Also extradited was Olalekan Jacob Ponle popularly known as Woodbery.

Both men were arrested by Dubai police last month for defrauding over 1.9 million, majority of them, reports say, were Americans.

This was revealed in a statement by the Dubai Police on Thursday in which the US Federal Bureau of Investigations extended its gratitude to the UAE crime watchdog for its role in apprehending and extraditing ‘Hushpuppi’.

In June, the Dubai Police had arrested Hushpuppi, Olalekan Jacob Ponle, known as ‘Woodberry’, and ten others in an operation tagged ‘Fox Hunt’.

The suspects were accused of “committing crimes outside the UAE, including money-laundering, cyber fraud, hacking, criminal impersonating, scamming individuals, banking fraud and identity theft,” the Dubai Police said.

Before his arrest, Hushpuppi had gained fame on social media for his outlandish display of wealth.

The director of Dubai CID, Brigadier Jamal Salem Al Jallaf said the raid that led to his arrest resulted in the confiscation of incriminating documents of a planned fraud on a global scale worth AED 1.6 billion ($ 435 million).

“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”, he said.

After conducting further investigations and analysing confiscated electronic devices, Dubai Police investigators uncovered sensitive information mined by the suspects on individuals and companies overseas including bank accounts and fake credit cards as well as documents and files condemning  gangs’ illegal activities, the Dubai Police said.