Remember to Escobar Fold 1phantom folding smartphone announced in early December 2019? Well, the smartphone that seemed too “beautiful” to be true, with its starting price of 349 dollars (in the same period, Samsung Galaxy Fold was offered for 2050 euros), was actually a rip off. The company of the company, Olof Gustafsson, declared itself last week guilty of multiple charges for fraud and money laundering, all deriving from the products promised by Escobar inc.
The Escobar Inc. affair ended: it was a scam
While in the same December 2019 Samsung launched its folding Galaxy Folding on the market (without the “Z”, at the time), the surprising (perhaps too much) Escobar Fold 1 was announced: the gold plated device promised a respectable technical data sheet for that year, headed by a 7.8-inch Full-HD+ AMOLED+ AMOLED+ display and by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 (supported by 6 or 8 GB of RAM and at least 128 GB of internal memory).
Despite the announcement of the product (a sort of rebrand of Royole Flexpai) was realistic and focused on the exploitation of successful tech influencer, the smartphone itself was only a scam, as evidently the company itself. This Escobar Inc. was a technological startup founded by the brother of Pablo Escobar, Roberto Escobar, and managed by the Swedish CEO Olof Gustafsson, who promised to provide customers with folding phones plated in gold at an incredibly (too incredibly) low price.
As reported by Techspotthe company obtained the real “success” with the Escobar Fold 2 model, largely due to the sending of influencer tech devices: the Smartphone sent was nothing more than a Galaxy Fold, as demonstrated also in the video published a few years ago by the well -known MKBHD, with a film designed to even cover the Samsung brand. A Galaxy Folding from 2000 euros to less than 400 dollars? In fact, customers were not sent to customers, but only to the “well -known faces” (like Mkbhd himself), exploited without their knowledge to advertise the scam.
According to what reported by Courthouse News Servicelast week Gustafsson has been declared guilty Of telematic and postal fraud and of different accusations of money laundering, all deriving from the products promised by Escobar Inc .. After selling the product promised to the aforementioned convenient price, the company sent to customers various promotional items or false certified ownership, creating a shipping register so as to prevent customers from requesting a refund. And the same method was used not only for the folding smartphone, but also for the other products on sale on the site, including the imitation of The Boring Company’s sample and the various devices plated in gold.
The knots are eventually coming to the comb, and Gustafsson is paying compensation for 1.3 million dollars. According to what is reported, the judgment It is scheduled in Los Angeles for December 5, 2025: the risk for him is that of a sentence to 20 years in federal prison for each charge for fraud e up to 10 years for each chief of accusation of money laundering.
Once again, what seemed like a scam, in the end proved to be such.
