An Instagram star with 2.4million followers has appeared in court in the US to face criminal charges over an alleged global scam which included an attempt to steal £100million from a Premier League football club.
Ramon Abbas, known on social media as ‘Hushpuppi’, has gained a following online after posting extravagant photographs of five-star hotels and luxury cars.
The Nigerian, 37, currently resides in Dubai, but after being arrested in the UAE last month he was taken to Chicago to appear in court on Friday.
He is then set to be transferred to Los Angeles in the next few weeks after a months-long FBI investigation dubbed ‘Operation Fox Hunt’ led to a series of arrests of alleged co-conspirators.
Abbas, who could face a statutory sentence of 20 years in prison if found guilty, and his associates are accused of attempting to launder hundreds of millions of dollars through business email compromise (BEC) frauds, with a top US law firm and a foreign bank said to be targeted.
