An American cybercrime expert, Gary Warner, says some scammers are behind the viral report of a notorious Nigerian fraudster, Ramon Abbas, aka Hushpuppi, laundering $400,000 while inside a prison in the United States.
Warner, Director of Research in Computer Forensics at the University of Alabama, stated this on Twitter on Thursday, hours after the purported report and the accompanying documents filtered in.
He said the document shared to back the report is a doctored version of a June 2020 affidavit, adding that the edited document was intended to get people to visit a scammer website.
He tweeted: “People are asking me if it is true that #Hushpuppi laundered $400,000 in #Stimulus cards from in prison.
“The document they show is an edit of a June 2020 Affidavit. The new version is fake, intended to get people to visit a scammer EIP website.”
The circulated document had claimed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation through its agent, Andrew John Innocenti, presented documents before the United States District Court of California on Wednesday with fresh evidence indicting HushPuppi of committing fraud and money laundering in the U.S. Federal correctional facility.