Dubai Police has released a short film narrating how Nigerian socialite, Ramoni Igbalode better known as Hushpuppi, Olalekan Jacob Ponle as Woodberry, along with ten members of a gang, specialised in money laundering and online fraud were tailed and arrested through an operation dubbed “Fox Hunt 2”.
According to HE Lieutenant General Abdullah Khalifa Al Marri, Commander-in-Chief of Dubai Police, the operation is another achievement added to the proud record of Dubai police in ensuring the emirate’s security, safety, as well as preserving people’s money and property.
It would be recalled that the self-acclaimed billionaire and Instagram celebrity, Hushpuppi and some of his friends were arrested on June 10 in Dubai over fraud.
Read Also: Hushpuppi, Woodberry And Others Allegedly Arrested By Interpol In Dubai
The Lieutenant General said;
Similar to operation ‘Fox Hunt 1’ that took down an African gang of nine online scammers last February, ‘Fox Hunt 2’ is another painful hit to cybercriminals who try to mess with the world’s security and safety.
Police said the raid resulted in seizure of incriminating documents pertaining to a well-planned international fraud.
Brigadier Jamal Salem Al Jallaf, Director of Criminal Investigation Department at Dubai Police, stated that they received information about a gang specialised in money laundering and online scams.
He explained;
The gang including Hushpuppi, known for his display of wealth on social media. He would pose as a businessman to lure victims from all around the world. A team of Dubai Police monitored the gang that was creating accounts on social media with fake names.
Hushpuppi is popularly known for his extravagant lifestyle, posting pictures with his luxury cars like Ferrari and Rolls Royce and a private jet.
According to Dubai Police, the gang used to hack corporate emails and send fake emails to corporate customers to change money transfers to the gang’s personal banking accounts.
Brig Al Jallaf added;
They were designing and mimicking company and bank websites to steal credit card data and illegally obtain victims’ money before laundering the cash.
During the arrest, police found a huge amount of data on individuals, companies, bank accounts, credit cards as well as documents of money laundering, online fraud and hacking accounts of victims outside the UAE.
He stated;
The forged documents pertained to online fraud outside the country. The fraud was worth more than Dh1.6 billion. We seized more than Dh150 million ($40.9 million) in cash from them and confiscated 13 luxury cars worth Dh25 million ($6.8 million).
Police also confiscated 21 computers and 47 smartphones, 15 memory cards, five hard disks containing 119,580 fraud files as well as addresses of nearly two million victims.
Watch short film about the arrest of Hushpuppi by Dubai police below;
