TL;DR Escobar Fold phone creator Olof Gustafsson has pleaded guilty to multiple counts of fraud and money laundering. Customers were sent certificates or merch instead of the foldables, flamethrowers, or gold iPhones they paid for, making refunds harder to claim. Gustafsson could face many years in prison and will pay up to $1.3 million in restitution. It looked like an …
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In a plea agreement, United States attorneys detail how Olof Kyros Gustafsson and Escobar, Inc. took orders for the phones and other products branded with the likeness of the drug lord Pablo Escobar, seeded products with tech reviewers and social media influencers “in order to attempt to increase demand,” did not deliver the products to customers, and transferred and laundered …
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If you have a hazy recollection of a gold-plated Escobar-branded foldable from a few years ago, your mind isn’t playing tricks on you. While the product announcement was very real (and very focused on a select group of popular tech influencers), the phone itself was every bit the scam it seemed to be on the surface — in fact, so …
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