How the US caught flashy Nigerian Instagrammers 'with $40m'

By Larry Madowo
Journalist
8 July 2020

The day after his 29th birthday in May, Olalekan Jacob Ponle posted a picture on his Instagram standing next to a bright yellow Lamborghini in Dubai.

"Stop letting people make you feel guilty for the wealth you've acquired," he admonished, wearing designer jewellery and Gucci clothes from head to toe.

A month later, the Nigerian, who goes by the name "mrwoodbery" on Instagram, was arrested by Dubai Police for alleged money laundering and cyber fraud.

The most famous of the dozen Africans nabbed in the dramatic operation was 37-year-old Ramon Olorunwa Abbas, "hushpuppi" or just "hush" as he was known by his 2.4 million Instagram followers.

Police in the emirate say they recovered $40m (£32m) in cash, 13 luxury cars worth $6.8m, 21 computers, 47 smartphones and the addresses of nearly two million alleged victims.

-snip-

"I think there's probably a certain arrogance when they believe they've been careful about maintaining anonymity in their online identities, but they live high on the hog and get careless on social media," said Glen Donath, a former senior prosecutor in the US Attorney's Office in Washington, DC.

-snip-

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, July 3, 2020

Nigerian National Expelled From the United Arab Emirates to Face Cyber Fraud Charge in Chicago

CHICAGO — A Nigerian national who allegedly orchestrated an international cyber fraud scheme targeting several U.S.-based companies has been expelled from the United Arab Emirates to face a federal criminal charge in Chicago.

OLALEKAN JACOB PONLE, also known as “Mr. Woodbery” and “Mark Kain,” 29, originally of Lagos, Nigeria, is charged in U.S. District Court in Chicago with conspiracy to commit wire fraud. A criminal complaint accuses Ponle of orchestrating “business email compromise” schemes to defraud several U.S.-based companies. The schemes resulted in attempted or actual losses to victim companies in the tens of millions of dollars, including a Chicago-based company that was defrauded into sending wire transfers totaling $15.2 million, the complaint states.

Ponle was arrested last month by law enforcement in the United Arab Emirates, where he had been residing. He was subsequently expelled from the UAE into the custody of the FBI and arrived in Chicago Thursday evening. Ponle made an initial court appearance this morning in Chicago. U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey T. Gilbert set a detention hearing for July 9, 2020, at 4:00 p.m.

The complaint and expulsion were announced by John R. Lausch, Jr., United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; and Emmerson Buie, Jr., Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago office of the FBI. The Criminal Division’s Office of International Affairs at the Justice Department provided substantial assistance. The government of the United Arab Emirates and the Dubai Police Department provided valuable assistance. Assistant U.S. Attorney Melody Wells of the Northern District of Illinois is prosecuting the case.

Ponle’s alleged cyber fraud scheme spanned at least the first nine months of 2019. The complaint describes several instances in which one or more unknown subjects gained unauthorized access to a U.S.-based company’s email account and sent messages to unwitting employees claiming to be from the company or a known business contact. The emails were nearly identical to prior legitimate emails sent over the company’s email account, but the fraudulent emails instructed victims to wire funds to a bank account that was set up by money mules at the direction of Ponle, the complaint states. Ponle then instructed the mules to convert the fraud proceeds to Bitcoin and send them to a virtual wallet that Ponle owned and operated, the complaint states.

-snip-