Hushpuppi! End of the road for an unrepentant playboy.
4 min read
Ramon Olorunwa Abbas, popularly known as Hushpuppi is a Nigerian of Yoruba origin. He had always loved good things of life and really wanted to live a good life. During his school days, he was always in the habit of talking about money and wealthy men anytime he and his friends were together. For Abbas, everything starts and ends with money. He truly believed that money constitutes the solution to all problems of this life. The Bible adage which says that the love of money is the root of all evils indeed sounded laughable to him. He really wanted to be a part of these groups of men who dictate the tone the pipe must follow at any given time because of their solid pockets. In order to realize this dream, Olorunwa Abbas whose original name is Ramoni Igbalode made up his mind to travel out of Nigeria. Findings established by Umuaka Times showed that he was making money in Nigeria as an internet fraudster but the money he was making was not enough to accord him the global attention he glamourously needed. He wanted to prove to highly paid international footballers and other sportsmen and musicians around the world that that he too can talk and the oceans and the seas of this world would listen.
Malaysia was his dream country where he thought he could perhaps hit it big bigger. Umuaka Times gathered that Hushpuppi was in Malaysia briefly for a number of years before travelling to Dubai in the United Arab Emirate to settle. In Dubai, Hushpuppi got exactly what he had dreamt of. He almost instantly became a big boy. Although his Instagram handle which has over 2.5 million followers from several countries of the world especially, Malaysia, UAE and Nigeria claimed he was into real estate business. Each of his followers kept wondering what the international big boy Hushpuppi, was into. He was not involved in entertainment like sports, music or film acting and production but daily, he kept drawing popularity to himself through the internet and the fearless display of his stupendous wealth.
It appeared like money started coming his ways weekly from all corners and he wasted no time to display his new status. Social media gossips again started to develop some theories which tried to investigate and examine the source of wealth of this flamboyant Black African man in the UAE. Some claimed he was into international kidnapping, others said he was a sea pirate or a ritualist while some claimed he was an indefatible drug baron. All these theories failed to hold waters and were totally deflated on June 10, 2020 when the Dubai police went in search of him and 11 other Nigerians in an operation tagged Fox Hunt 2. According to the police Umuaka Times monitored on the internet, Hushpuppi and his friends constituted a cybercrime syndicate which specialized in hacking corporate and institutional emails, cloning of websites of corporate bodies and individuals and directing payments and money transfers from these websites and emails to their own accounts.
In order to achieve and perfect these systematic and high-tech criminal activities, Hushpuppi and his boys used tools like 15 flash drives, 119,500 files, 47 smart phones, 6 hard drives and 21 laptops. Umuaka Times gathered that these tools were recovered from them at the point of their arrests.
Hushpuppi, the billionaire fraudster and an international glamour boy made a fortune of about 168 billion Naira after defrauding over1.9 million persons and corporate bodies over the years. He had a fleet of highly expensive 13 luxury cars worth about $7 million and was known as Gucci Master because of his love for Gucci wears.
Regular visitors and commentators on his Instagram handle would always confirm that the Gucci Master always displayed wealth and an international high profile status. He commanded attention anywhere he want. He would hire a private jet, pick a first class ticket in an aircraft and always used one of his Rolls Royce Phantom cars to drop him at the airport anytime he was travelling. Social media gossips again had it that at several occasions, Hushpuppi shut down some clubs in Dubai and ordered the clubs never to serve any other customer until he and his friends were done. An act the Michael Jacksons of this world never tried, despite their intimidating wealth.
An African proverb would always say, “when a criminal starts getting popular, his days are numbered”. For four months, the police and Interpol kept tracking and monitoring the criminal moves and social activities of Hushpuppi and those of his close colleagues. A couple of weeks ago brought the whole flamboyancy, razzmatazz, the tendency to make more millions to a sudden end.
Hushpuppi and his friends met their waterloo as the Dubai police got hold of them in a Hollywood-like raid.
By these historic arrests, the whole “fame”, popularity, Instagram followership and wealth of Hushpuppi have died a natural death. A popular Nigerian newspaper described him as a former billionaire. The reason for this is certainly connected to the fact that the police in Dubai had confiscated all that made Hushpuppi foolishly show his flamboyant lifestyle with reckless abandon, including the $40 million cash that was said to have been recovered from him by the police. Many of his followers on Instagram have described him as a “money-miss-road” while others had displayed no pity for his showmanship which they have tagged as undiluted foolishness and fantastic foolhardiness.
Hushpuppi, a man who made about $450 million with over 2.5 million followers on Instagram is now the talk in and outside Nigeria. Some speculations Umuaka Times gathered had it that, moves are being initiated to deport him to Nigeria for trial.
Hushpuppi, a former fraudster, former billionaire, former international big boy and a former customer of Gucci wears and Rolls Royce may most likely spend the rest of his life in jail if he possibly escapes a death sentence.
This is just the beginning.
