Who are some of the scammers with the most
ridiculous lifestyles? Let’s find out and get started with:
4 - Hushpuppi Nigerian social media influencer Ramon Abbas,
known as “Ray Hushpuppi” to his two million Instagram followers, was accused of operating
several international online scams involving money laundering. Abbas grew up in a poor neighborhood
in Nigeria called Lagos. His mom worked at the local market and his father was a taxi driver.
Abbas started selling shoes and clothing out of the back of his car in Nigeria for some
extra money. Eventually, he became successful enough to open a few stores throughout his town.
But everyone in town knew that Ray was really making his money online, through cybercrime.
Locally, he was called a ‘Yahoo boy’ –or someone who makes their money through internet scamming.
While he claimed to make his money through the local fashion industry,
Ray was laundering hundreds of millions of dollars.
Lifestyle
In 2014, Ray left Nigeria for Kuala Lumpur where his Hushpuppi persona really started to take off.
A while later, he moved to Dubai where he posted photos of himself
donning designer clothing in luxury cars or private jets.
Some of the items that made Abbas's Instagram page included a Bentley Bentayga,
Gucci t-shirts, and Richard Mille watch. He never failed to include
an inspirational quote about his success in his Instagram captions.
Back in Nigeria, Ray’s wealth turned him into a celebrity.
Photos circulated of him with famous Nigerian musicians and politicians.
However, Nigerian news outlets began to speculate that Ray was a “Yahoo boy.”
In one scheme in January 2019, Ray and his co-conspirator laundered $15 million that
North Korean hackers stole from a bank in Malta and funneled the money to banks
in Romania and Bulgaria. In another ruse, Ray and a partner attempted to steal $100
million from a Premier League football club by intercepting payments with fake emails.
Abbas admitted to defrauding someone in Qatar out of a $15 million loan
that would’ve been used to build a school. Over a period of 18 months,
Ray laundered over $300 million, and authorities began to notice.
Investigation
The FBI had their eye on Abbas since 2019. When one of his co-conspirators got caught,
Ray knew he was in hot water. Based on Nigerian news articles, text conversations between Ray
and his co-conspirator, plus his flashy social media page, the FBI garnered enough evidence
to make an arrest. The Dubai police caught up to Abbas in June 2020. Police barged into his
apartment and placed him under arrest. He was held at a federal detention center for months.
Still, that didn’t stop people from wanting to watch Ray’s life. In fact,
it garnered him even more fame. He gained an additional 300,000 followers after his
arrest. Two days before, he uploaded a photo of himself with a white Rolls Royce.
In April 2021, Ray pleaded guilty to conspiracy to engage in money laundering. The following
November, a federal judge in California sentenced him to more than 11 years in
prison plus $1.7 million in restitution for his victims for money laundering and Internet fraud.
It looks like this puppy was hushed for good.
3 - Elizabeth Holmes Elizabeth Holmes made her fortune through a
biotech startup called Theranos. The blood-testing company claimed to use a special device that
could detect diseases in blood samples faster than anyone else in the world. Investors and
patients bought into Holmes’s lies. It was later discovered that the devices didn’t actually work.
Holmes has claimed that she truly believed in her mission and had scammed herself just as
much as anyone. The prosecution countered that Holmes knowingly conducted business
and raked in profits while knowing that her biotech company was a complete sham.
Lifestyle
Even during the trial, Holmes didn’t cut corners on her life of luxury. Holmes lived with her
partner, Billy Evans, a hospitality heir, living in Green Gables in Silicon Valley.
As one of the most expensive estates in the country, it’s worth $135 million.
The pair lived in a nine bedroom home on a 74 acre property with four pools,
a tennis court, flower and vegetable gardens, and reservoir. The estate was built in 1911 and is a
well-known hosting venue for politicians, royalty, and Silicon Valley celebrities.
But that wasn’t their only property. Holmes and Evans continued to rent
their luxury apartment in San Francisco for $5,000 per month, even after Theranos
shut down in 2018. The apartment is located on the famous Lombard street.
Holmes was set on buying a Siberian Husky. She flew first class across the country,
was chauffeured to a top-of-the-line breeder, and purchased a nine week old puppy that she
named Balto. During work, she and Balto were often picked up by a private driver,
sometimes with personal assistants and security guards in tow. Balto was allowed
into the Theranos labs, which made scientists complain about potentially contaminated samples.
There were frequent concerns over dog waste in a supposedly sterile facility.
Vanity Fair reported that Holmes had two drivers, two security guards, and two assistants. She was
driven everywhere and had an assistant on call 24/7. She also had a personal publicist who she
paid $25,000 per month. But in the end, many of her employees just became dog walkers for Balto.
Holmes frequently traveled via private jet. When the business started to face financial woes,
she reluctantly agreed to downgrade to business class on commercial flights.
Aftermath
The Theranos headquarters in Palo Alto cost $1 million per month in rental fees. When
designing the facility, Holmes reportedly spent $100,000 on a single conference room
table. One of the boardrooms had screens that descended from the ceiling. Holmes quickly
had to sacrifice her bougie lifestyle after Theranos went bankrupt and she went on trial.
Holmes was convicted in November of 2022 on
four counts of criminal fraud and got 135 months in prison.
Those prison linens are going to be a huge disappointment.
2 - Ruja Ignatova Ruja Ignatova,
known by some as the scammer of the century, gained her $4 billion in riches through a fake
cryptocurrency called OneCoin, which she and her business partner claimed would put BitCoin out of
business. The Bulgarian businesswoman held infotainment events in which she showcased
herself as a billionaire dripping in rare jewels and designer couture. And it didn’t stop there.
She threw birthday parties at the legendary Victoria & Albert Museum,
complete with a performance from Tom Jones- exciting all the single
Aunts that were in attendance. Ignatova also owned several properties in Sofia,
Bulgaria and Sozopol. She thought the scam would last forever. It didn't.
Disappearing Act
Soon after her Ponzi scheme came into the spotlight in 2017,
Ignatova vanished. She’s been on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list ever since.
Ignatova owns a huge four-bedroom London penthouse on the Abbots House apartment block in Kensington.
Abbots House Penthouse Limited is a well-known company with very little government oversight,
which meant that Ignatova’s name was kept out of public records and land registry deeds.
The property boasts a private pool in the residence with a highly valued Andy Warhol
painting she'd stuffed in a closet. Of all the things Ignatova claims to be,
she does not claim to be an art connoisseur,
but likely bought some art pieces in order to funnel her wealth into something tangible.
A BBC reporter remembered meeting Ignatova in 2016 after she returned from a shopping trip.
Her bodyguards lagged behind her with more than 20 shopping bags each. Each bag was full of designer
items from brands like Jimmy Choo, Prada, and Calvin Klein. According to the BBC article,
her apartment stored art worth nearly $600,000 from London’s Halcyon gallery.
Some of the art featured included a print of Elizabeth Taylor,
another Warhol called Red Lenin, and a print of Queen Bubblegum by Michael Moebius.
Ignatova fled to her native Bulgaria and then to Dubai where she lived on a private superyacht in
the Mediterranean. The 145-foot long superyacht can house 12 guests in six cabins including
one master bedroom, one VIP, three double and two twin rooms. There was also a gym,
sundeck jacuzzi, and underwater observation post onboard the ship.
In addition to her London penthouse and a multi-million dollar private residence in Dubai,
she invested $2.5 million on the coast of Bulgaria in a town called Sozopol. Apparently,
her new home includes a small private beach, a vineyard, a children’s playground,
and a large swimming pool. This is Ignatova’s summer home. She also
bought a three-story building next door to serve as her guest house.
Popping Up
Police warned that Ignatova likely got plastic surgery to change her
appearance and evade capture. But in January 2023, Ignatova
unexpectedly came out of the woodwork to list her London property for sale.
She put it up for sale with an asking price of $15.5 million, which she later reduced to
$13.6 million. Even though Ignatova bought the property under a company name, a new
law required her to come out of hiding and be named in full as the beneficiary of the company.
The listing suggests that Ignatova is still alive, even though her whereabouts
are unknown. It makes it easier for authorities to freeze her assets and lure her out of hiding,
so her victims can get some of the restitution they deserve.
The US government has already charged Ignatova with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud,
conspiracy to commit money fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, and securities fraud.
Aftermath
Ignatova is currently one of only eleven women
to ever make the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list. The FBI is offering a
$100,000 reward to anyone who can provide intel on Ignatova’s location that may lead to her arrest.
It’s speculated that she possibly traveled with a German passport to Athens,
to the UAE, Germany, Russia, or even back to her native Bulgaria.
Ignatova’s business partner, Sebastian Greenwood, wasn’t as successful in his escape. In July 2018,
he was arrested in Koh Samui, Thailand. Ignatova’s brother, Konstantin,
took over business operations but was arrested in March 2019.
At some point, spending your life evading the law is a prison in itself.
1 - Bill Omar Carrasquillo On Youtube, Bill Omar Carrasquillo
called himself Omi in a Hellcat, a business mogul who flaunted his wealth with diamond
jewelry and luxury cars. He also ran his own clothing line and restaurant. Carrasquillo
also showed off his luxury life on YouTube videos that garnered more than one million views each.
The South Jersey Youtube personality made his money by stealing content from cable
providers and selling it for a lower price online. With more than 800,000
Youtube subscribers, he had a robust clientele.
From 2016 to 2019, Carrasquillo and his two associates opened fraudulent accounts
with Comcast, DirecTV and Verizon Fios, and employed Chinese encoders to copyright the
content and sell it to users via illegal streaming services for $15 per month.
But it didn’t last long–he was indicted for running a
piracy scheme that earned him and two business partners more than $30 million.
Lifestyle
Carrasquillo dropped out of school in 11th grade and was arrested for
selling the good ol’ stereotypical illegal substances people do for fun. By 2012,
he was starting to get his life together and started selling DVDs and then reselling Amazon
merchandise. He also created an app called Gears TV. After a year, Carrasquillo was a millionaire.
Carrasquillo had more than a dozen luxury cars including a Mercedes Benz,
Bentley, and a MacLaren. He also had several properties nearby his native Philadelphia,
including a mansion once owned by Phillies player Jimmy Rollins.
Investigation
Carrasquillo initially maintained his innocence, and documented his struggle against the federal
government on Youtube since May 2019. In one video called “THE FBI IS BACK!!!” Carrasquillo videoed
himself adorned in a diamond encrusted pendant with his brand name on it and told his subscribers
how the FBI seized more than 30 of his cars and millions of dollars from his bank account.
Carrasquillo warned his subscribers that he could be indicted on charges including money
laundering. He confessed to feeling “kind of depressed” about it. Even though much of
his equipment was seized by the FBI, Carrasquillo said that he was running a legitimate business on
the grounds that he paid for his cable boxes and streaming services. But that wasn't going to fly.
Eventually, Carrasquillo admitted his involvement in the scam on a video he uploaded to his YouTube
channel. He said a behind-the-scenes clip from Disney’s Pixar encouraged him to admit his guilt
because it showed some of the hard work that goes into making a film. It reminded him of
the frustration he felt when people started knocking off his “Reloaded” clothing brand.
In another video, Carrasquillo pleaded with the government to not put him in
jail. He promised that he wasn’t a threat to society and would pay back
however many millions of dollars he owed. He posted bail the same day he was arrested,
and promptly uploaded a video thanking his friends and fans for their support.
Aftermath
Carrasquillo ultimately pleaded guilty to several charges including copyright infractions,
wire fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion. Police seized a bank account
with more than $5.2 million in addition to several cars including a 2018 Mercedes
Benz with $80,000 cash inside and a 2020 Bentley Continental with more than $20,000 cash inside.
The indictment states that Carrasquillo and his associates must forfeit nearly
$35 million in assets including more than 50 cars and motorcycles,
and several of his properties in Philadelphia.
If convicted, Carrasquillo faces up to 514 years in prison. The case is
ongoing as of February 2023, but it doesn't look good. Big cable always gets their man.
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Let us know in the comments below what you’d rather do,
have $100 million dollars right now but only live 15 more years, OR live the life you have now?