The legal representative to embattled Nigerian Instagram sensation, Ramon Abbas also known as Hushpuppi, has claimed that his client was “kidnapped” from the United Arab Emirates by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Gal Pissetzky said this on Friday while answering questions from journalists.
Pissetzky argued that the Dubai police shouldn’t have extradited his client to the United States, claiming there was no extradition treaty between the two countries.
He said the better option would have been that his client, Hushpuppi was extradited to his own country, considering he is not a citizen of the US.
He said on Friday, “In my opinion, the FBI and the government here acted illegally when they kidnapped him (Hushpuppi) from Dubai without any legal process to do so.
“There was no extradition, there were no legal steps taken, there were no court documents filed, it was simply a call to the FBI. He is not a citizen of the United States, the US had absolutely no authority to take him.
“If Dubai wanted to expel him, they should have expelled him back to Nigeria. I’ve never heard of anything like that. That is the real story here.”
Hushpuppi is facing multimillion-dollar fraud and money laundering charges in Los Angeles, after the Federal Bureau of Investigation had accused Hushpuppi of conspiring to launder hundreds of millions of dollars from frauds known as Business Email Compromise and other scams.
If convicted, he would serve at least 20 years in prison in the United States.