Crowdfunding is a great way to get a product some much needed hype and an infusion of cash to develop it. It’s also become popular to turn to pages like GoFundMe to pay for hospital bills or medical equipment, the sort of thing that people need to live but can’t always afford.
But any time any stranger is asking for your money, you have to be a bit skeptical, right? And if the person asking for your cash happens to be the brother of the world’s most notorious drug kingpin, well, that’s another matter entirely.
Roberto Escobar definitely has a colorful past. You’ve almost certainly heard of his brother, Pablo.
Back in the ’80s, he was the King of Cocaine. Netflix made a series about his life, Narcos . Roberto served as Pablo’s bookkeeper, living a lavish life built upon misery and horrific violence, even if he was more personally removed from that devastation.
While Pablo famously died in a gun battle with police in 1993, Roberto went to prison for his role in the Medellin cartel.
But he’s been free and clear since 2003, and he says that his old life of crime is behind him. In a 2014 interview in VICE , he said “That’s all behind me now, though; I do good now.”
Apparently, he gave up crunching numbers for kingpins in favor of caring for horses, searching for a cure for HIV, and cryptocurrency . The interviewer called him “a pretty weird dude.”
And now, the former cartel accountant, who once lived like a king off of deplorable crimes, is looking for a handout.
He set up a GoFundMe asking for a mere $50 million which, when you think about it, is peanuts compared to the kind of cash the Medellin cartel pulled in in its heyday. The reason? He wants to impeach President Trump.
Naturally, GoFundMe took down the page shortly after it went up.
The folks at GoFundMe had some serious questions about the campaign before they were willing to let it go forward — things like what would actually happen to the money people donate.
If those questions are answered satisfactorily, the page could go up again.
There are a few other pertinent questions that should be asked as well, like why?
According to an interview Roberto did with Global News in Canada, he has a few reasons. “His discrimination of the Latino American people. We are some of the hardest-working people in the world. Trump is 100-per-cent corrupt and colluding with foreign governments. Trump is like a Chihuahua dog — small and cute but doesn’t know how to bite. I am good at biting.”
Global also managed to get some screenshots of the GoFundMe before it went down, and they report that the appeal banks on the Escobar name’s link with “success.”
“Pablo Escobar is a South American, also known as ‘Latino,’ legendary hero, who helped millions of people in his home country of Colombia and surrounding countries.
“With the strong leadership of his company Escobar Inc., founded by his brother Roberto Escobar, we will push hard to get Donald Trump impeached.
So far, everything Pablo and his family have done has become multi-billion-dollar successful ventures.”
Apparently Roberto believes that impeaching Trump “will help the world.”
“I am going to eliminate Trump from power. I will do it. My brother Pablo killed hundreds of judges and thousands of policemen. But this time we will do it the legal way, peacefully,” he said.
That all sounds just a tad ominous given his history, but it’s still not clear how giving this man $50 million will end up with Trump being impeached.
Nevertheless, he maintains that that’s what it will cost.
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“Once we raise the $50 million, we believe we have an incredibly high chance of getting Trump removed swiftly from being the president,” he said. “He has done a lot of wrong and should be held accountable. But of course, it costs money to go against a powerful guy like Trump.”
Roberto also claims to have some inside information on what kind of a person Trump is.
“I know there is enough dirt on this guy. If we pay the right connections, they will come forward and testify in Congress and co-operate with Robert Mueller,” he said.
Just in case anyone has any doubts about his opinion of the current Oval Office occupant, Roberto summed it all up by saying “nobody is as bad as Trump.”
“He is the worst cockroach in history. Cockroaches don’t die easily but when they do, they do it on their backs with their feet up and intimate parts exposed. Remember that I said that.”
h/t Global News
