California
‘Hushpuppi’ gets prison term for money laundering conspiracy
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Nigerian social media influencer who called himself Ray Hushpuppi and flaunted a lavish lifestyle fueled by his efforts to launder millions of stolen dollars was sentenced Monday in Los Angeles to more than 11 years in federal prison.
Ramon Abbas, 40, also was ordered by a federal judge to pay $1.7 million in restitution to two fraud victims, according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Abbas was “one of the most prolific money launderers in the world,” Don Alway, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, said in the statement.
Prosecutors said Abbas and a Canadian man laundered money from various online crimes including bank cyberheists and business email compromise, or BEC, a prolific crime in which crooks hack into email accounts, pretend to be someone they’re not and fool victims into wiring money where it doesn’t belong.
In 2019, he helped launder some $14.7 million stolen by North Korean hackers from a bank in Malta, funneling the money through banks in Romania and Bulgaria, prosecutors said.
He also helped launder millions of pounds stolen from a British company and a professional soccer club in the United Kingdom, got a New York-based law firm to transfer nearly $923,000 to a criminal account and acknowledged in a plea agreement that he helped defraud someone in Qatar who sought a $15 million loan to build a school, federal prosecutors said.
At Monday’s sentencing, Abbas was sentenced to 135 months in federal prison and was ordered to pay $922,857 in restitution to the law firm and $809,983 in restitution to the victim in Qatar.
“By his own admission, during just an 18-month period defendant conspired to launder over $300 million,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum, although they said much of the intended loss “did not ultimately materialize.”
Abbas, under the name “Ray Hushpuppi,” had more than 2 million Instagram followers before he was arrested in 2020 in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
His social media posts showed him living a life of luxury, complete with private jets, ultra-expensive cars and high-end clothes and watches.
“I hope someday I will be inspiring more young people to join me on this path,” read one Instagram post by Abbas, who pleaded guilty in April 2021 to one count of conspiracy to engage in money laundering.
Ghaleb Alaumary, 37, of Mississauga in Ontario, Canada, was charged separately. He pleaded guilty in 2020 to one count of conspiracy to engage in money laundering, prosecutors said. He was sentenced to nearly 12 years in federal prison and was ordered to pay more than $30 million in restitution.
California
Crewman gets 20 years for deadly stabbing on container ship
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A crewman who stabbed to death his supervisor on a container ship heading to Los Angeles was sentenced Monday to 20 years in federal prison.
Michael Dequito Monegro, 44, of the Philippines, was sentenced in federal court in Los Angeles. He pleaded guilty in May to committing an act of violence against someone aboard a ship that is likely to endanger the vessel’s safe navigation.
Monegro was working on the MSC Ravenna on a two-week run from Shanghai to Los Angeles in September 2020 when he stabbed the man as the vessel was about 92 miles (150 kilometers) off the Southern California coast, according to his plea agreement.
Monegro attacked his supervisor in a hallway outside a locker room, prosecutors said.
The two men struggled and fell down. Monegro got on top of his victim, stabbed him, pulled a second knife from his supervisor’s coveralls and attacked him with both knives despite other crewmembers trying to stop him, including throwing a trash can at him, prosecutors said.
Monegro stabbed the victim 31 times, according to a statement Monday from the U.S. attorney’s office.
“Monegro stopped stabbing the victim only when he became too tired to continue,” the statement said.
The ship’s captain, chief mate and chief engineer arrived and the captain finally persuaded Monegro to get off the victim, who died on the ship, the statement said.
Monegro was kept under guard in his cabin and arrested a week later when the ship docked at the Port of Los Angeles.
Authorities didn’t indicate a motive for the attack. The victim, identified in court papers only by the initials “M.S.,” left a wife and a daughter who was 17 at the time. He was the only income earner “and his death caused significant financial strain on the family,” prosecutors said in a sentencing memorandum.
Washington
Man pleads guilty in threats to shoot Black grocery patrons
SEATTLE (AP) — A suburban Seattle man accused of threatening to shoot Black customers at grocery stores in Buffalo, New York, and at businesses in other states, has pleaded guilty to making interstate threats and the hate crime of interference with a federally protected activity.
U.S. Attorney Nick Brown said Joey George of Lynnwood pleaded guilty Monday. As part of a plea agreement George, 37, admitted he made phone calls threatening to shoot Black customers at grocery stores in Buffalo, restaurants in California and Connecticut, and a marijuana dispensary in Maryland, Brown said.
He’s also agreed to pay restitution to the impacted businesses, at least one of which closed because of the threats.
According to the plea agreement, on July 19, 20, and 21 George called grocery stores in Buffalo and threatened to shoot Black people in the stores. George told the staff at the store to “take him seriously” and ordered the store to clear out the customers as he was “preparing to shoot all Black customers.” One store closed.
In May, a shooter killed 10 Black people and hurt several others at Tops Friendly Supermarket in Buffalo. A 19-year-old white man with ties to white supremacy in that case has pleaded not guilty to federal hate crime charges.
George did not call the same store but referenced it in threats, prosecutors said.
His other calls to businesses in other states also involved threats to Black people and in one case, Hispanic people, prosecutors said. He admitted his racial hate to local law enforcement who used caller ID to trace the call, Brown said.
George has been in custody since his arrest in July. He’s scheduled to be sentenced in December.
New Mexico
Son of suspect in Muslim slayings to plead guilty on gun charge
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The son of an Afghan refugee suspected in the shooting deaths of four Muslim men in New Mexico has reached an agreement with federal prosecutors to plead guilty to a charge that he provided a false address when buying two guns last year.
Court records detail the proposed agreement filed last week between Shaheed Syed and prosecutors. It calls for Syed to be sentenced to time already served and to be placed on three years of supervised release.
There’s no indication how soon the court could sign off on the proposal. Neither prosecutors nor Syed’s public defender would comment on the pending motion.
Authorities have charged Syed’s father — Muhammad Syed — with three counts of murder and tampering with evidence charges in the killings that shook New Mexico’s Muslim community over the summer. The elder Syed also is a suspect in a killing of a Muslim shop owner in Albuquerque last year.
No motive has been disclosed. Police say bullet casings found at two crime scenes were linked with casings found in Muhammad Syed’s vehicle and guns found at his home and in his vehicle.
Muhammad Syed, who has been in the U.S. with his family for several years, had denied involvement in the killings when authorities detained him. He pleaded not guilty to the charges during a hearing in state district court in late August. He remains in custody.
Prosecutors have alleged that Shaheen Syed may have played a role in at least one of the killings, but he has not been charged in that case.
In court filings, prosecutors pointed to cellphone records that they say show Syed possibly helped his father track Naeem Hussain, a 25-year-old man from Pakistan who was fatally shot on Aug. 5 in the parking lot of a refugee resettlement agency in southeast Albuquerque.
John Anderson, Shaheen Syed’s attorney, said during an earlier court hearing that those allegations against his client were “thin and speculative.”
As for the weapons charge, Syed had used a Florida address on his firearm application even though he currently lived in Albuquerque.
Massachusetts
Man sentenced to 15 months for COVID loan fraud
BOSTON (AP) — A Massachusetts man who admitted to lying on his application for federal coronavirus business stimulus funds and using some of the $400,000 he received to pay his mortgage has been sentenced to 15 months in prison, federal prosecutors said.
In addition to the time behind bars, Adley Bernadin, 44, of Stoughton, was sentenced last week to three years of supervised release and ordered to forfeit more than $280,000, according to a statement from the U.S. attorney’s office.
Bernadin in May 2020 submitted a fraudulent application on behalf of a purported home health care company for a Paycheck Protection Program loan, falsifying a tax form and falsely claiming the business had a monthly payroll of $175,200, prosecutors said.
He used the money to pay his home mortgage and wrote checks to people he knew, including $135,000 to someone described by prosecutors as his wife or partner.
Bernadin was arrested in March and pleaded guilty in June to wire fraud.
The PPP program, enacted as part of the CARES Act in March 2020 to provide emergency financial assistance to Americans suffering economically from the effects COVID-19 pandemic, provided forgivable loans to small businesses for job retention and certain other approved expenses.
Arizona
9-year-old being charged with bringing gun to school
QUEEN CREEK, Ariz. (AP) — Pinal County authorities said Monday that they are bringing felony charges against a 9-year-old student who brought a loaded gun to school in August.
County Attorney Kent Volkmer said his office is charging the boy with being a minor in possession of a firearm and interfering with or disruption of an educational institution.
According to court documents, the student took a gun to Legacy Traditional Academy on Aug. 25 and there were 16 rounds of ammunition in the magazine.
The boy told authorities he put the weapon in his backpack for protection from some older kids who were bothering him on his way to school, according to Phoenix TV station ABC15.
The boy’s name hasn’t been released because he’s a juvenile.
He told Queen Creek police that he brought the gun to school one day, left it in his backpack overnight and got caught with it at school the next day.
Police said the boy’s mother told officers that the gun was kept in the top drawer of a dresser in their home and away from her young son.
In a statement, Volkmer said his office concluded “there was no reasonable likelihood of conviction against the juvenile’s parents for any crime but prosecutors took the incident seriously “given the inherent danger involved with a gun being on a school campus.”
