{"id":19436,"date":"2025-07-24T04:02:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T04:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/19436\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T04:02:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T04:02:12","slug":"the-gold-plated-escobar-phone-scam-has-finally-caught-up-with-its-creator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/19436\/","title":{"rendered":"The gold-plated Escobar phone scam has finally caught up with its creator"},"content":{"rendered":"

If the words Escobar foldable phone<\/a> ring a bell, congrats \u2013 you\u2019ve definitely been paying attention to tech news over the years. That gold-plated foldable phone from 2019 was very much a real headline at one point \u2013 even if the product itself turned out to be anything but.\u00a0
Now, the guy who ran the show \u2013 Swedish CEO Olof Kyros Gustafsson \u2013 has officially pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering. The announcement comes straight from the US Department of Justice<\/a>, marking the end of one of the most bizarre tech scams in recent memory.
Back in 2019, Gustafsson was fronting Escobar Inc., a company named after the Colombian drug kingpin. The company promised wild things: gold-plated foldables for just $399, physical cryptocurrency called \u201cEscobar Cash,\u201d even flamethrowers.<\/p>\n

\u00a0
But instead of building real products, Gustafsson was just slapping gold foil on Samsung\u2019s $2,000 Galaxy Fold and reselling it under the Escobar name. Something that popular reviewer Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) exposed back then in a video, helping spread the word about the whole scam.<\/p>\n

\"Video<\/p>\n

Video credit \u2013\u00a0MKBHD<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, people placed orders, and well\u2026they never got the phone. Instead, Gustafsson would send them some random \u201cCertificate of Ownership,\u201d a promo book, or other junk just to have a tracking number. If someone asked for a refund, the company would point to that mailing receipt to deny the request.<\/p>\n

In total, Gustafsson now faces up to 30 years in prison \u2013 20 for the fraud, 10 more for the laundering \u2013 and could be ordered to pay $1.3 million in restitution. Sentencing is scheduled for December 5.<\/p>\n

This whole saga is a wild cautionary tale about too-good-to-be-true tech. I mean, a foldable phone for $400, especially one dipped in gold? That\u2019s not a bargain, it\u2019s bait. So, better stick to official stores or trusted retailers \u2013 and if something sounds too good to be true, it almost always is.<\/p>\n

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Read the latest from Tsveta Ermenkova<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If the words Escobar foldable phone ring a bell, congrats \u2013 you\u2019ve definitely been paying attention to tech…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[2306,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-19436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-mobile","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}