By Manskar
He’s gone from cell to cellular.
Drug kingpin Pablo Escobar’s ex-con brother Roberto just started peddling a foldable smartphone he predicts will be so addictive, it’ll replace the iPhone — and he’s betting on his late sibling and lingerie-clad women to market it.
Video ads for the gold-colored “Escobar Fold 1’’ feature the famous grinning mugshot of Roberto’s murderous drug-lord brother on the phones’ screens — and a team of half-naked women cooing over and caressing the device.
“Imagine a reality, where you can ease fold your phone into a tablet,’’ crows the Web site for Escobar Inc., which is run by Roberto, the onetime accountant for the Medellin Cartel and Pablo’s older brother. “This is now possible, thanks to the Escobar Fold 1.’’
Photos on the site also include women with what look like guns being held to their heads biting the phone as if fighting to keep it, and several beauties naked, leaning on each other, as one of them holds a device.
Roberto, a k a “El Osito,’’ or “Little Bear,’’ once handled billions of dollars in illicit proceeds from his narco-trafficker sibling’s drug empire.
Roberto spent more than a decade behind bars for his crimes. His brother was fatally shot by cops in Colombia in 1993.
Roberto says he has left his life of crime behind and now runs the second family business, whose latest offering is the $349 phone.
It’s unclear where he got the money to develop the gadget, which boasts a 7.8-inch phone screen that can be expanded into a tablet about double the size.
An ad on the company’s Web site suggests that late Apple founder Steve Jobs could have only dreamed of such sophisticated tech.
“Apple Boy Steve once looked into space,” a voice bellows in the video. “He saw Pablo Escobar with a phone beyond anybody’s imagination.”
Roberto’s phone is an apparent rival to Samsung’s $2,000 Galaxy Fold, which hit US stores in September.
Apple has yet to roll out a foldable device, though reports have indicated one could come by 2021.
Roberto has claimed that his phone can beat Samsung and Apple devices with its low price and durability.
He told digitaltrends.com that it “cannot break” because the screen is made from “a special type of plastic.”
“I have told many people that I would beat Apple, and I will,” Roberto said. “I cut [out] the networks and retailers to sell to customers phones that can fold for only $349, phones which in stores cost thousands of dollars by Samsung and others.”
Earlier this year, he took on Tesla boss Elon Musk over a “toy flamethrower’’ that a Musk company began manufacturing. Roberto said the electric-car mogul ripped off his idea and has threatened to sue Musk.
Roberto said he got the idea for the flame-shooting “toy gun’’ from the way he and his brother would sometimes burn piles of cash to keep warm. Musk says he got his idea from the movie “Spaceballs.’’
