Olof Gustafsson: Got access to 840 million | The world

On Friday last week, Olof Gustafsson filed a lawsuit against the Swedish state, which Expressen has previously reported on.

In the lawsuit, Olof Gustafsson also describes his version of the course of events that led to him now risking life in an American super max prison – and which he wants to use to be extradited to Sweden.

Sold Samsung phones with Escobar stickers

Olof Gustafsson was previously CEO of Escobar Inc. He had received the task of running the company directly from Roberto Escobar, Pablo Escobar’s brother, who was seen as the second man in the feared Medellin cartel in Colombia.

The company sold products such as flamethrowers, vodka and cryptocurrency marketed under the name of the notorious cartel boss.

Escobar Inc is accused of defrauding hundreds of people through deals with mobile phones they called “Escobar Fold 1” and “Escobar 2”. Mobile phones whose product images were in fact models from Samsung and a Chinese manufacturer that had Pablo Escobar stickers on them.

It is the mobile phone mess that the American IRS mainly targets and wants to have Olof Gustafsson extradited to the USA for.

The extradition request from the US Department of Justice, DOJ, states that none of the customers received the cell phones they had paid for. Gustafsson and his cronies instead emailed certificates of ownership to the “buyers”, which Escobar Inc used as “proof” that the phones had been delivered when Paypal and other payment services got in touch and demanded a refund.

The money from the mobile scams was then funneled around various accounts in the United States, Sweden and the United Arab Emirates to be laundered before being transferred to accounts belonging to Gustafsson, according to the DOJ.

But Gustafsson claims that the IRS and other US authorities are pursuing him that began eight years ago.

In 2016, Olof Gustafsson chose to sue the streaming giant Netflix for one billion dollars for portraying Pablo Escobar in the series “Narcos” without the company’s permission.

However, the lawsuit must have required resources that went beyond the company’s other businesses.

Gustafsson’s meeting with Escobar in Colombia

During a meeting in Colombia, Roberto Escobar therefore proposed a solution to the problem, claims Olof Gustafsson.

He claims that Roberto Escobar gave him access to a Swiss bank account with 77 million dollars, equivalent to approximately 840 million kroner.

Gaining access to the account must have made Gustafsson nervous.

– I think you would also get a little nervous if you had the opportunity to get access to 77 million dollars, says Sebastian Scheiman.

When Gustafsson returned to the United States, the Swede claims that his then-American attorney suggested that they use the IRS whistleblower function to report Roberto Escobar’s Swiss bank account.

In that way, they would receive a fine from the IRS of up to 30 percent of the account money – money that would then come back as “clean”.

The lawyer: “A lot of money with dubious origins”

After the attorney’s fees, there would be roughly $17 million left to pump into Escobar Inc.’s operations.

– They turned to the IRS to get the money guaranteed white. There was no desire or ambition to use black money, so to speak. That’s why they were nervous, to have gained access to so much money with questionable origins, says Sebastian Scheiman.

The question is, was Roberto Escobar on board with the plan to report his account to the IRS?

– I don’t think Olof Gustafsson has done anything to clash with Roberto Escobar, says Scheiman.

But after an initial meeting with the IRS, Gustafsson claims he was called to a follow-up meeting, which was supposed to take place at a restaurant. Instead, it turned out to be the Los Angeles office of the OCDETF, a joint task force for, among others, the IRS and the federal police authorities DEA and FBI, Gustafsson says.

The people present are described as “very serious” by Olof Gustafsson, who during the meeting showed a satellite phone that he used to talk to Pablo Escobar. He also told how their paths had crossed.

Olof Gustafsson claims he shared “certain information” about Escobar’s business empire. Among other things, that the family had 320 bank accounts and that the one containing 77 million dollars was the smallest of these. Gustafsson also claimed that he had company documents that tied both Roberto Escobar and sister Alba Marina Escobar to certain companies.

The requirement during the meeting: Become an infiltrator and intercept Escobar

After listening to Olof Gustafsson’s story, he claims that the authorities demanded that he become their infiltrator in the Escobar family.

– They are looking for them, of course. They have wanted to prosecute this family for a long time, says Scheiman.

After speaking with his lawyer at the time, Gustafsson declined because the assignment “was more or less tantamount to suicide,” the Swede claims in the lawsuit.

Instead, Gustafsson claims they wanted him to wear a microphone to get Roberto Escobar to admit that the money came from crime.

According to Gustafsson, he would then be rewarded with 17 million dollars from the account.

Gustafsson states that he declined once more and claims that the IRS and other US authorities then began to pursue him.

According to lawyer Sebastian Scheiman, the IRS’s latest request to have the Swede extradited from Spain to the United States is just part of the ongoing campaign against his client.

– Yes. After he refused the offer to become an infiltrator against Roberto Escobar, the American authorities harassed him in various ways to the point that he chose to move from the United States.

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