Afrobeat star Davido has opened up about his close friendship with convicted Instagram influencer and international fraudster, Hushpuppi.
During a recent podcast while in the United States, Davido opened up about his relationship with the convicted felon, who is currently serving an 11-year prison sentence in the United States for cyber crimes.
The Nigerian socialite, whose real name is Ramon Abbas, was arrested in Dubai in June 2020 and extradited to America, where he was eventually sentenced to federal prison in 2022.
Speaking on the Bagfuel podcast, Davido revealed that although Hushpuppi is his friend, he never really knew what he was into or what he did for a living. Hushpuppi was known for documenting his flamboyant and opulent lifestyle on social media, an act that earned him over two million followers on Instagram.
Davido acknowledged that the convicted felon lived a good life, claiming he never knew his friend was a fraud.
“My prayers go out to him, he’s my friend. I just used to see him around, and I never really knew what he was doing, but he lived a good life.” Davido said on the podcast.
Davido added that Hushpuppi may have felt the urge to parade his life of opulence to the public without much care, probably because of a tough upbringing he may have had growing up.
“Some people are happy to play ball for five years and that’s it. In Nigeria, we say e get suffer wey you go suffer, that is you go through some hardships (to the point) that you say ‘let me ball for two years and I’m good’.
Hushpuppi’s cyber heists cost his victims millions of dollars. He began his criminal activities in Oworonshoki, a poor coastal area northeast of Lagos, Nigeria, as a “Yahoo Boy” – the Nigerian term for men who commit romance scams by stealing other people’s identities online and swindling their unsuspecting lovers out of money. The Yahoo Boys took their name from the first free email available in Nigeria.
At his sentencing in 2022, Hushpuppi was also ordered to pay $1,732,841 (Sh222 million) in restitution to two victims.
He pleaded guilty to money laundering, admitting that he attempted to steal more than $1.1 million from an investor in Qatar. He also admitted to several other cyber and business email compromise schemes that cumulatively caused more than $24 million in losses.
Two weeks before his arrest by the FBI, Hushpuppi renewed his lease for another year at the exclusive Palazzo Versace apartments in Dubai.
“Thank you, Lord, for the many blessings in my life. Continue to shame those waiting for me to be shamed,” he captioned an Instagram photo of a Rolls-Royce just two weeks before his arrest.
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