Lawsuits and Questionable Phones 🧐

What are the nuggets? 💎

🌮 The Origin Story: Roberto, fresh out of prison after handling the cash flow for Pablo’s drug empire, looked at his brother’s legacy and thought, Why let all this infamy go to waste? In an attempt to recoup some of the lost Escobar fortune, they decided to pivot from crime to “legitimate” commerce. 

🌮 The Phones: In December 2019, Escobar Inc launched the Escobar Fold 1, which turned out to be just a rebranded Royole FlexPai. Two months later, they dropped the Escobar Fold 2 - basically a Samsung Galaxy Fold with poorly added Escobar branding. There were even rumours they shipped out books instead of phones, to claim the orders were “fulfilled.”.
By May 2020, they were selling “refurbished” gold plated iPhone 11 Pros and even tried suing Apple for $2.6 billion. Roberto Escobar, accused Apple of intentionally selling vulnerable devices that compromised users' security, particularly his own, as he claimed his iPhone had been hacked. One of the listed natures of the suit was “Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress”... I  highly recommend watching this Marques Brownlee video where he goes through the full story. 

🌮 Feuds with Tech Giants: Escobar Inc has made a habit of picking fights with major corporations. From threatening to sue Netflix (for $1 billion!) over the portrayal of Pablo in Narcos, to trying to take down Apple with wild claims/fake lawsuits, and attempts to delay Klanra’s IPO they’re clearly not afraid to use lawsuits (real or fictional) as a way to drum up media attention.

🌮 Social Media Censorship Battles: In 2020, Escobar Inc went after Facebook with a $100 billion lawsuit. Roberto Escobar claimed the platform let someone create a fake account under his name, which led to serious security threats against him. Claiming that Facebook’s failure to control fake accounts put his privacy and life at risk.

🌮 The NFT Cash Grab: Predictably, they jumped on the NFT train when the hype was at its peak, offering “exclusive Escobar-branded” NFTs. It wasn’t clear what you were actually buying - probably not ownership of a rare digital asset. It felt more like a sophisticated (or not-so-sophisticated) cash-grab that capitalised on the hype without delivering much substance. They also now sell a physical crypto note on their site. 

🌮 Celebrity Endorsements... or Paid Partnerships?: At one point, Escobar Inc claimed Kanye West was interested in a partnership (because, of course). Whether this was an actual conversation or just a media ploy to grab headlines is anyone’s guess. The stunt worked, though—people were talking about it everywhere, despite zero evidence anything official ever happened.

🌮 The Pablo Escobar Rebrand Attempt: Roberto tried to rebrand Pablo’s legacy as more of a “Robin Hood” character than a cartel kingpin. They launched merchandise, biographies, and documentaries that romanticise Pablo's life in a way that conveniently forgets all the… murder and drug trafficking.

🌮 Funding? Let’s Not Pretend: With little-to-no external investment, Escobar Inc’s “funding” source is likely... well, interesting. They’ve been bootstrapped from day one, but you can’t help but wonder if a few bags of cash from the old days helped kick things off. There's no need to knock on VCs when you have other, um, creative financing.

Recommendation 🌟

Laying Out The Figures 💵