How Hushpuppi committed $400k fraud from behind bars in US

Convicted Instagram celebrity Hushpuppi has yet again been given fresh charges on the count of committing fraud and laundering over $400k from inside US prison.

US prosecutors have submitted documents before the United States District Court of California on Wed 16th March 2022 which showed how Ramon Abbas, AKA Hushpuppi committed fraud and laundered over $400k from behind bars.

The court documents stated that Hushpuppi, while in U.S Federal correctional facility, participated in the purchase and laundering of Economic Impact Payment [EIP] debit cards fraudulently obtained from stolen data of U.S residents and its citizens.

Economic Impact Payments, EIP are financial support offered by the US government to U.S residents according to the CARES Act.

From the documents presented in court, as one of the methods of receiving EIP is from debit cards, it was found that hackers use data of U.S residents to file and obtain Economic Impact Payments debit cards which they sell off in underground marketplaces to other cybercriminals.

It was also known that inmates are allowed access to phone calls, video calls, the internet, and computers with limited usage however, their internet activities are not monitored because inmates have the right to their privacy which Hushpuppi, who was charged with cybercrime, received the same privilege.

However, security officers at the correctional facility, between 28th Jan and 4th Mar 2022, observed more usage of the internet by Hushpuppi, they obtained a warrant to monitor Hushpuppi activities.

A dedicated system was set up for Hushpuppi and his activities were recorded for 7 days.

It was found that he was actively buying EIP debit cards from an underground cybercriminal marketplace called StimulusCard (“https://stimuluscard.com/”). While being recorded, Hushpuppi bought a total of 58 EIP debit cards with a total value of $429,800 on the site and laundered the money through one AJ.