{"id":84061,"date":"2025-07-22T20:16:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T20:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/84061\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T20:16:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T20:16:10","slug":"remember-that-gold-plated-escobar-foldable-the-man-behind-it-is-headed-to-jail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/84061\/","title":{"rendered":"Remember that gold-plated Escobar foldable? The man behind it is headed to jail"},"content":{"rendered":"

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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\u2019t 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 \u2014 in fact, so was the entire company.<\/p>\n

In the waning days of 2019, as Samsung finally released its fixed Galaxy Fold into stores, a smaller \u2014 but nevertheless eye-catching \u2014 brand announced its own plan for a gold-plated foldable. Escobar Inc. was a tech start-up founded by Pablo Escobar\u2019s brother Roberto Escobar, and ran by Swedish CEO Olof Gustafsson, that promised to deliver gold-plated folding phones to customers for a fraction of the Galaxy Fold\u2019s price. Oh, and flamethrowers too, because why stop at ripping off Samsung when you can also rip off Elon Musk\u2019s Boring Company?<\/p>\n

Needless to say, nothing this company ever promised was real, but that doesn\u2019t mean this was your run-of-the-mill case of vaporware. As reported by Techspot<\/a>, after making an initial splash online with the original \u201cEscobar Fold 1\u201d \u2014 a $350 rebranded Royole Flexpai \u2014 Escobar Inc. made its real impact with the Escobar Fold 2, thanks in large part to sending several devices to tech influencers like MKBHD<\/a>. In fact, the video Marques Brownlee produced on the $400 foldable (which, once again, was a rebranded existing phone, this time utilizing either returned or damaged Galaxy Fold units) garnered attention from the FBI<\/a> in June of 2020. Now, over five years later, this story finally has an ending.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

MKBHD\u2019s video from 2020.<\/p>\n

Courthouse News Service<\/a> reports that Gustafsson has pleaded guilty to \u201cmultiple counts of fraud and money laundering,\u201d all stemming from the products promised by Escobar Inc. The scams pulled by the company under Gustafsson\u2019s leadership are all pretty cut and dry: after selling a promised product at a ludicrously affordable price point, Escobar Inc. would ship their customers various promotional items or fake certificates of ownership, creating a mailing record to prevent customers from requesting a refund. Whenever a payment processing service did try to chase down a customer\u2019s money, Escobar Inc. could present that tracking information as proof of delivery, thereby leaving the customer high and dry without their cash.<\/p>\n

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All products sold by the company \u2014 its $250 Boring Company flamethrower knock-off, as well as its various gold-plated iPhones and foldables \u2014 were, effectively, completely fake, with the only actual products ever arriving on the desks of influencers unwillingly playing a role in Gustafsson\u2019s scheme. Thankfully, though, this story has a happy, if somewhat-delayed, ending. As part of his plea deal, Gustafsson is paying his victims $1.3 million in restitution, even forfeiting money held in his Swedish bank account.<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll be sentenced in Los Angeles on December 5th, and faces some pretty lengthy federal prison sentences for each of his six counts. Samsung\u2019s real next-gen foldable<\/a>, meanwhile, starts shipping at the end of this week.<\/p>\n

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.<\/a><\/p>\n

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