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How the FBI used Instagram and Snapchat to track down a notorious Nigerian conman in Dubai

Published by Emmanuel Yekini on July 11th, 2020.

One of the fraudsters was Ramon Olorunwa Abbas aka “Hushpuppi,” a social media celebrity known for flaunting his opulent lifestyle to over two million Instagram followers with posts of him in luxury cars, private jets, and designer clothes, globe-trotting to fashion shows and dining with celebrities, soccer stars and Nigerian politicians.

The arrest was part of a United States’ FBI investigation that unveiled Abbas as one of the kingpins of a transnational cybercrime network specializing in Business Email Compromise (BEC) scams, a fast-growing form of cyber-fraud that involves hacking corporate emails and sending fake messages to clients in order to redirect financial transfers and steal bank details

Abbas, 37, was extradited from the UAE to the US to face criminal charges for allegedly conspiring to launder hundreds of millions of dollars through online heists, including those targeting a US law firm, a foreign bank and an English Premier League soccer club, according to a criminal complaint filed in a US federal court last month.Investigators used Abbas’s social media accounts on Instagram and Snapchat to track and confirm his whereabouts, and gather evidence to charge him