The Tech Archived · VIDEO ESSAY

What Happened to Gizmondo? The Console Run by the Swedish Mafia That Lost $382 Million

In 2005, Gizmondo launched as the most advanced handheld games console ever built, with GPS, Bluetooth, a camera and a million pound launch party attended by Sting and Pharrell Williams. It sold fewer than 25,000 units. Behind it sat Tiger Telematics, a company that had been an American flooring retailer three years earlier, and executives with criminal convictions the Swedish press would eventually expose. By the time it collapsed, the company had lost over 382 million dollars, its own auditors had refused to review its accounts, and a director had destroyed a Ferrari Enzo on the Pacific Coast Highway. This is the full story of how the money actually disappeared, told from the company’s own SEC filings rather than the headlines.