The Time that the Swedish Mob made a Game Console

What if I asked you to name all of the game console manufacturers? You will probably say Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. If you grew up in the 70s, 80s, or 90s, you might say Atari, Sega, Magnavox, or Coleco. True gamers will say V-Tech. But, the Swedish mob is also a part of this list.

The Gizmondo is a strange thing. Made by Florida-based Tiger Telematics, it only had 14 games with 8 of those seeing the light of day in the US. It was crap. The first problem was the games.

Almost all of these games are laughably terrible, crash the device’s rudimentary operating system, or, in the case of the surprisingly fun Sticky Balls, are named things like Sticky Balls.

They also sold two versions. One for $400 without ads and one for $300 with ads. Oh, by the way, the service that pushed out the ads was never activated. And Tiger insisted that they were called “Smart Adds” (yes, with two “D”s). If the business model of selling a version without ads and selling a cheaper version with ads sounds familiar to you, it’s what Amazon’s been doing with the Kindle.

It would also melt because the console was made of pure rubber.

But, that’s not the weirdest part. The weirdest part is the console’s criminal connections.

Several executives were involved with criminal activity such as CEO Carl Freer, Director of Gizmondo Europe Stefan Eriksson, and Mikael Ljungman, the head of 3P PreForm Marketing and Research, which did work for Gizmondo Europe.

All three were convicted of fraud. In addition, Eriksson was the leader of Uppsalamaffian (the Uppsala mafia).

How they caught him is the weirdest part. He crashed a Ferrari Enzo in California, tried to blame it on a nonexistent German man, and was arrested for driving under the influence. He pleaded guilty of two counts of embezzlement and one count of illegal gun possession in California. He was deported to Sweden and was convicted of extortion and aggravated assault. He was later convicted for possession of cocaine and other drugs and for driving under the influence. He was found not guilty for charges of grand theft auto.

It was found that Freer sold luxury cars in Spain, Germany, France, and the UK, some of which had been stolen. Freer had been arrested in Sweden, Spain, Germany, the US, and the UK.

Ljungman was found guilty of false accounting and tax evasion, and was also connected to Stein Bagger, Danish entrepreneur and former CEO of IT Factory, another company with criminal relations.