Hushpuppi: U.S. govt unveils charges against Abba Kyari as court orders his arrest

Abba Kyari’s involvement

Hushpuppi, a resident of Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), until his arrest in June 2020, had contacted Mr Kyari to arrange the arrest of one of the arrowheads of the heist, Chibuzo (Vincent), who was unhappy over his share of the proceeds of the fraud, and was prepared to hint the victim, a Qatari businessperson, to stop payments.

“CHIBUZO’s messages to ABBAS during that time show that he was unhappy with the amount that, and/or speed with which, ABBAS was paying him, so he contacted the Victim Businessperson directly,” a special agent of the Federal Bureau of investigation (FBI), Andrew John Innocenti, said in an affidavit filed in support of the charge.

Mr Innocenti, whose account was based on message conversation extracted from Abass telephones, added, “CHIBUZO told the Victim Businessperson that JUMA and ABBAS were ‘fake,’ in an attempt to convince the Victim Businessperson to stop making fraudulent payments to ABBAS and JUMA, and to make fraudulent payments to him instead.

“When JUMA and ABBAS learned of CHIBUZO’s interference, ABBAS arranged to have KYARI—a highly decorated Deputy Commissioner of the Nigeria Police Force—arrest CHIBUZO for interfering with the fraud scheme.

“ABBAS specifically told KYARI that CHIBUZO contacted ‘the job’ behind ABBAS’ back to ‘divert the job for himself.’

“ABBAS asked KYARI to have the police administer the ‘serious beating of his life’ and arranged with KYARI to pay to keep CHIBUZO imprisoned for at least a month, so that the fraud scheme could be successfully executed, and the money could be obtained.”

Mr Kyari was said to have arrested Chibuzo and held him in custody for about a month as instructed by Hushpuppi.

He sent Chibuzo’s photograph in custody to Hushpuppi, the federal agent said, “and also facilitated payments from ABBAS to the Nigeria Police Force personnel who arrested CHIBUZO.”

This, according to Mr Innocenti, was “to ensure CHIBUZO’s continued arrest, thereby preventing CHIBUZO from notifying the Victim Businessperson of ABBAS’ and JUMA’s fraudulent scheme and preventing CHIBUZO from hijacking the scheme for his own benefit.

The decorated Nigerian cop was also said to have “told ABBAS that he would not allow CHIBUZO’s girlfriend to pay money to get CHIBUZO out of custody as he would have done for a ‘normal arrest’.

After Chibuzo’s arrest, the special agent said, “JUMA and ABBAS convinced the Victim Businessperson to make the payments of $299,983.58 described above.”

“KYARI’s knowing involvement in the scheme allowed ABBAS and JUMA to continue defrauding the Victim Businessperson undetected and receive money obtained from the Victim Businessperson after it was laundered,” the document added.

in Dubai

The FBI special agent said Huspuppi appeared to have first interacted with Mr Kyari during the police officer’s trip to Dubai in September 2019.

He said conversations between them showed that Hushpuppi sent a car and a driver to drive Mr Kyari around in Dubai.

“Soon thereafter, KYARI sent ABBAS a video slideshow which showed some personal photographs of KYARI, some of which appeared to have been taken in the U.A.E,” Mr Innocenti added.

He said further that later in September “after KYARI sent ABBAS an article that discussed him arresting alleged kidnappers, ABBAS wrote, in part, to KYARI, ‘Am really happy to be ur boy,’ and later, ‘I promise to be a good boy to u sir’.

Charges

The three charges approved by the U.S. grand jury including an allegation that Mr Kyari “together with others known and unknown to the Grand Jury, knowingly conspired to commit wire fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1343”.

The grand jury alleged in the second count that they conducted and attempted “to conduct financial transactions, affecting interstate and foreign commerce, knowing that the property involved in the financial transactions represented the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity, which, in fact, involved the proceeds of specified unlawful activity — namely, wire fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1343”.

They were also said to have aided and abetted one another and knowingly in transferring, possessing and using, without lawful authority, a means of identification that each defendant knew belonged to another person, during and in relation to a felony violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1349, Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud, as charged in Count 1.

‘It was a response to distress call’ – Kyari

Mr Kyari took to his Facebook page on Tuesday to react to the revelation about his indictment.

He said he was contacted by Hushpuppi about two years ago complaining that somebody was threatening to kill his family members.

He admitted picking the suspect up but claimed that no one “demanded” money from Hushpuppi.

“Nobody demanded for a kobo from Abbas Hushpuppi. Our focus was to Save people’s lives that were purported to have been threatened,” he said.

He insisted that his team only “responded to a distress call he made on threat to his family and released the suspect when we discovered there was no life threat from the suspect.”

“This is the true story. Vincent Chibuzo) is alive, he can be contacted,” he added.

He said he only introduced the accused to a cloth seller whom Mr Abbas directly paid about N300,000 into the person’s personal account.

Attempts to hear from the police spokesperson, Frank Mba, were abortive as he did not answer calls.

Source: Premium Times