Remember the Escobar Fold? There weren’t just one, but two models. But here’s the thing: it turned out to be the biggest “tech heist” pulled in recent years. You may have seen popular tech influencers, such as MKBHD, discussing it. It all sounded pretty legit—though slapping a notorious drug lord’s name on a phone isn’t exactly a masterclass in ethics.
It turns out it was quite a scam. The outfit behind the phone, which leveraged Escobar’s name, did have some hardware to show, well, for the influencers, anyway. But they never sent the product to paying customers. If you ask me, it was an elaborate scam. I mean, reaching out to influencers to peddle the wares, even spending money to publish press releases and whatnot; it all sounds like a lot of work to scam people out of their money. Who buys the phone anyways?
Back in 2020, MKBHD did a video exposing the Escobar Fold. Shortly after, in June 2020, the FBI collected the phone as evidence from MKBHD. There was a case. Fast forward to July 2025, and the guy behind this elaborate scam has pleaded guilty to fraud.
I remembered Marques Brownlee’s video but never really paid much attention. Now that it’s officially a case closed, I felt we needed this closure—or more correctly, an update—since we did write about this device. I can’t say we’re at fault. This guy had a press release on one of the biggest PR platforms. How the hell would I suspect anything wrong, except that maybe this phone was celebrating drug culture and kind of immortalizing our lifetime’s most notorious drug lord?
Anyhoo, if you didn’t know, now you know.
If you are interested, you can pore over the details of how this one Swedish man pulled off this scam over at irs.gov.
Image: Facebook (@MKBHD).
