The Escobar Phone Scam Saga Has Finally Come To An End

They were Samsung phones pinch golden stickers connected them.

The erstwhile CEO of nan institution that marketed nan sketchy-looking Escobar Fold 1 and Escobar Fold 2 phones — which you whitethorn retrieve from a 2020 video from Marques Brownlee — has pleaded blameworthy to fraud and money laundering, according to the US Department of Justice.

In a plea agreement, United States attorneys item really Olof Kyros Gustafsson and Escobar, Inc. took orders for nan phones and different products branded pinch nan likeness of nan supplier lord Pablo Escobar, seeded products pinch tech reviewers and societal media influencers to “in bid to effort to summation demand,” did not present nan products to customers, and transferred and laundered customer money to “use nan costs for their ain individual use.” 

In Brownlee’s video, he unboxed an Escobar Fold 2 telephone shipped to him and recovered that it was conscionable a Samsung Galaxy Fold — a telephone that costs astir $2,000, acold much than nan $400 Escobar Inc. was trading it for — pinch a golden sticker connected it.

Escobar Inc. besides sold a $500 “Escobar Flamethrower” that was “modeled after” The Boring Company’s Not-A-Flamethrower, nan $500 “Escobar Gold 11 Pro Phone” that was “marketed arsenic a refurbished Apple iPhone 11 Pro,” and Escobar Cash that was “marketed arsenic nan world’s first ‘physical cryptocurrency,’” according to nan plea agreement.

Instead of sending products to paying customers, Gustafsson mailed them a “‘Certificate of Ownership,’ a book, aliases different Escobar Inc. promotional materials” to create a mailing record, nan DOJ says successful its property release. Then, erstwhile a customer tried to get a refund for thing that wasn’t delivered, “Gustafsson fraudulently referred nan costs processor to nan impervious of mailing for nan Certificate of Ownership aliases different worldly arsenic impervious that nan merchandise itself was shipped and that nan customer had received it truthful nan refund requests would beryllium denied.”

A judge has scheduled a sentencing proceeding for December 5th, wherever Gustafsson faces up to 20 years successful national situation for nan fraud-related counts and up to 10 for nan money laundering-related counts. Gustafsson must besides salary arsenic overmuch arsenic $1.3 cardinal successful restitution.