(upbeat music) - So I've made a few references over the past couple years to that time that the FBI visited the studio, and I was asked not to talk about that for what I feel like are pretty obvious reasons. So for years I haven't, but it turns out I am now finally able to tell that story. So here we are. So for those of you who don't know, we have a studio here, and it's in a larger building with more tenants in it obviously. It's like an office building. It's not exactly like an office building, but you know, there's a front desk, and security and all that. And I've been in this building long enough that we have a pretty good relationship with them. So we have this one rule, basically. So there's the guy at security at the front desk. We'll call him Bob, just for this. But Bob and I have this one rule, which is that if anyone ever shows up at the front desk and asks for me that he doesn't let them in. I have to come out and meet them to confirm that I was expecting them, and then I bring them back to our studio. So if someone just randomly shows up, which you shouldn't, but if they do, and I don't show up at the front to meet them, then I wasn't supposed to meet them. But if I have someone coming and I expect them, I meet 'em outside. That's our one rule, and we stick to it. So in June, 2020, it was pretty early in this new space that we have, and it's also right around like peak COVID. So I had sent everybody home, and it was just me and Andrew coming into the studio to work on basically building furniture, and making videos, and recording the podcast every week. So I got here pretty early on one of those summer mornings, and I'm starting to get all my stuff settled, and then there's a knock on the door. (door knocks) So I open the door, and it's our front desk guy, Bob. And Bob basically says, "Hey Marques, there's some people with badges at the front desk to see you. I, of course didn't let them in, but if you would like to, they're up there." And then he just walked away. And my first thought is confusion. I'm like, what? What did I do on the way here that someone with badges would show up asking for me? I'm a little concerned. I'm not sure what to think. So there was a solid minute where I just like stood there in the doorway, like, okay, do I go up there, or do I just stay here in the studio without asking who the people with badges are? Eh. And then I just went up to the front. I went up, I went up to the front desk, and sure enough, there's three people with badges there, and they walk right up to me, and they all like flash their badges. FBI, just like the movies. Like FBI agent this, IRS agent this. And they're like, "Marques, good to see you. We've got some questions for you about the Escobar phone." So immediately I'm relieved, but I'm like, oh, oh, oh, the Escobar phone. Oh. Because see, a few months earlier I had published a video about the Escobar Fold. If you guys haven't seen that video, basically the story goes, there's this company parading around and selling this $400 gold folding phone, which they're gonna use to destroy Apple and Samsung. And they had these insane marketing campaigns and all this. But really what they were doing, as I uncovered in my video, was covering Samsung Galaxy folds cheaply with like gold stickers, and then shipping them to YouTubers and people who they believed would talk about it positively. And then not shipping any of the other orders from regular people or the audiences that watched those videos. Those people were getting scammed out of their money. And honestly, in hindsight, I don't know how they thought they were gonna get away with this. Like it felt pretty obvious to me. But, you know, eventually their whole plan backfired when I made a video about the entire thing. So now fast forward a couple months, and it actually makes sense that the FBI and the IRS are interested. I just didn't, I didn't realize they were just gonna show up one day, but here we are. But, you know, shout out to Bob at the front desk for sticking to our rule. Even though he probably had a bunch of people like Flash FBI badges at him, he stuck to our rule, and that was great. So I appreciate that. But yeah, so I came out, I brought them back to our spot, and they basically then had a bunch of questions about that video and the process of dealing with that company in any way. Like any and all communications that I had with them, any email I'd ever sent or received from them ever, they wanted everything. And actually it was funny, another tidbit is, Andrew at the time had just started running the business email account here. And when they were asking like, has anybody else on your team possibly ever been in email communication with this company? And I was like, I think Andrew might've. And Andrew just had arrived at the studio and walked up to the front door of our spot. And so I like, I go, "Hey, hey, come in." And you know, first thing he sees is like me in an empty studio with a bunch of people in suits, like waving him over. So he has a pretty funny alternate perspective on this story. So the FBI actually took the half peeled Escobar Fold and the scratched gold iPhone from my videos as evidence in the case. They literally asked for them and took them away. They put 'em in sealed plastic bags that said evidence on them, which is why I said at the end of the smartphone awards that year- Also honorable mention to the Escobar Fold 2, which I also don't have on this desk because it is in the possession of the FBI. Someday I'll be able to tell that story. So as they're leaving, you know, they've asked me all the questions. As the FBI and IRS people are leaving, they're like, "Hey, don't talk about this at all publicly, please." And I'm like, "Of course, yeah. No, obviously you're the FBI, of course I'm not gonna talk about it. I don't want to interfere with the investigation in any way. But also like, when could I talk about it? Like, how long do you think before I am allowed to?" And they said, "We'll let you know." So I've been biting my tongue for years, not talking about it, hinting at it a little bit, but not anything too serious. But since then, a lot of the dominoes have started to fall. You know, at first when the scam was happening, PayPal stopped working with them. So they'd switched to this only non-refundable direct transfer thing with Klarna. And then they stopped working with them too. And then eventually the whole operation starts falling down, and the guy at the head of it named Olaf Gustafsson, this guy finally ends up getting arrested and going to prison in Spain for fraud, and money laundering, and a bunch of other things, basically for everything that I talked about in those videos. So I've been holding onto this not really knowing like, okay, is it cool now that he's behind bars to talk about it? So we actually reached back out to those same FBI agents because they left their cards, and they're like, "Oh yeah, no, it's cool now to talk about it. You're totally fine." So there unfortunately is no footage of any of this incident, but there is these papers which they provided as proof that they received property to be used as evidence in the case. So one Pablo Escobar Fold 2 mobile flip phone, AKA Samsung, and one Pablo Escobar Gold 11 Pro mobile phone, AKA iPhone 11 pro. But hey, now you basically know the story. Yeah, pretty serious business out here, making videos about phones sometimes, you know? Apparently also, if this guy Olaf ever does get charged in the United States, then it's very likely my videos would show up somewhere in those court documents, which is crazy. And also the phones that they took may show up as evidence. But yeah, I do wanna get back into a little more of the more investigative deep dive type of videos. Obviously the giant scams don't happen very often, thankfully, in the tech world, but still they are fascinating stories when they do. And by the way, that's not the only encounter that we've had with the FBI in running this YouTube channel, but that's another story for another day. But hey, if you want more fun stories like this one, let me know with the comments. But also the latest episode, the bonus episode of the Waveform podcast is just stories like this one (upbeat music) from the past couple years at the studio, whole story time episode. It's fun. So go over there and subscribe and watch that. But yeah, that's basically it. Thanks for watching. Catch you guys on the next one. Peace. (upbeat music) It's a story of how I became a villain. For at least 24 hours, I was hated. - A couple weeks, I would say. - Yeah, oh really? A couple weeks. Well, oh, 'cause the video had to come out. Hang on here for a second, I'm gonna go get him. I literally wait there with all my bags and stuff, and like this guy disappears into this booth, comes back out with another guy. He goes, "Hi. Oh, good to meet you." And he's filming me now. Okay. - Oh no. - So now he's filming me. A couple weeks later I log into YouTube, and everyone on Twitter's like, "Why is Marques such a jerk?"