Popular Instagram celebrity, Hushpuppi has received fresh charges as US prosecutors tendered to court, documents showing how he committed internet fraud and laundered over $400k from within the prison facility.
US prosecutors submitted the documents before the United States District Court of California on Wed 16th, March 2022 with fresh evidence indicting HushPuppi of committing fraud and money laundering from within the U.S Federal correctional facility. The court documents stated that Hushpuppi, while in U.S Federal correctional facility, participated in the purchase and laundering of Economic Impact Payment (EIP) debit cards illegally obtained from stolen data of U.S citizens and residents.
EIPs are financial support offered by the US government to U.S residents in line with the CARES Act. One of the ways eligible US residents receive their EIP is by debit cards. From the documents presented to court, it was found that hackers use data of U.S residents to file and obtain Economic Impact Payments debit cards. They sell off these EIP cards in underground marketplaces to other cyber criminals.
In the court document, US prosecutors mentioned that inmates are allowed access to phone calls, video calls, the internet, and computers with limited but not monitored usage because inmates have right to their privacy. Hushpuppi wasn’t exempted from this like other inmates.
However, between 28th Jan 2022 and 4th Mar 2022, security officers at the US Federal correctional facility, observed more usage of the internet by Hushpuppi. Knowing that Hushpuppi was arrested for cyber related crimes, they acquired a warrant to record Hushpuppi’s internet activities. A dedicated system was set-up for him and his activities were recorded for 7 days.
It was found that Hushpuppi was actively buying EIP debit cards from an underground cyber criminal marketplace called StimulusCard (“https://stimuluscard.com/”). While being recorded, Hushpuppi bought a total of 58 EIP debit cards with a total value of $429,800 on the website and laundered the money through one AJ.
