In this gripping exposé, we delve into the jaw-dropping case of an online content creator whose YouTube videos led to an unexpected and life-changing consequence. Witness the shocking journey that took a turn for the worse, culminating in a 5.5-year prison sentence that no one saw coming. Join us as we uncover the controversial content, the legal battle, and the aftermath of this unprecedented YouTube scandal. Prepare to be astounded by the power and repercussions of online media.
On May 16 2019 Omi In Hellcat uploaded his first video titled (PAY DAY AT RELOADED CONSTRUCTION – VLOG EPISODE 1) the vlog ends with a very deep message.
His Message: Always remember live life the way you want to live it, you only get one chance at this, one shot at life, Once chance once shot that’s it any mistake that you make is done, and you’re done.
Little did Omi know starting this YouTube channel could have been one mistake that would ultimately land him in federal prison that very first video that Omi posted got around 60k views in the first three days the video shows Omi stepping out of his mention walking down his long driveway with more than 15 all-white cars parked in it and telling his viewers about his entrepreneurial endeavors from there he drives to his first night club that where they were doing renovations then he goes to second nightclub where they just made the final touch before opening.
Omi continued to post vlogs that started with motivational messages and typically in the middle of all his videos would be him attending to his businesses buying expensive clothes, jewelry, new cars, and even houses for a widely successful man he was relatable down to earth and kind far from the narcissistic rich a**s we typically see on the internet. Within two months he reached 100k subscribers by the end of summer 2019 he had 300k subscribers every time he was asked about how he obtained his wealth his answer was extremely vague, but as Omi spent more time showcasing his lifestyle on the internet and more open on how he made his money he caught the attention of the FBI.
On November 20th, 2019 just six months after his first video, they raided his home, and the FBI confiscated around 5 Million Eight Hundred Seventy-Five thousand dollars for 58 Vehicles including a 2020 Lamborghini Huracan, 2019 Audi A7, and 2019 Lamborghini Aventador. They also took 21 properties including buildings in downtown Philadelphia and mansions in the suburbs you would think that in a situation as serious as this Omi Would keep quiet but as soon as this happened he went live on YouTube to tell his Fans about the raid first he taught the Feds were after him for tax evasion which was partially true and Omi claimed he was innocent but it wasn’t just taxes that the feds were worried about.
Once the Feds raided him that is when Omi started opening up about exactly how he made his fortune.
Omi in A Hellcat whose real name is Bill Omar Carrasquillo operated a large-scale internet protocol television(IPTV) piracy scheme in which they fraudulently obtained cable television accounts and then resold copyrighted content to thousands of their own subscribers, who can then stream or playback content.
This piracy scheme all started on Kodi is essentially just a media player that’s available on any device people use to watch videos podcasts movies play games, listen to music, etc., However, Kodi doesn’t make its own content it’s open source streaming platform that anyone can make apps on because of this it’s mostly known for people who watch pirated or stolen content most people use Kodi on Amazon Fire Stick they would go on Kodi app and install all their favorite networks and stream content for free, But it is not that easy a lot of these add-ons can be riddled with malware or just end up being bogus apps that don’t work or stream low-quality content which leads to people Googling things like best Kodi add-on for free and searching through blogs to find out what apps that are most trusted like The Crew, Homelander.
Not only does researching and installing this app take a little bit of technical skills it is also just a lot of work.
Around 2016 Omi was exposed to this and saw a huge opportunity Omi would buy Amazon FireSticks for frothy dollars jailbreak them or install all the best and most trusted apps onto Kodi and resell them for about $120 – $250 to his customers essentially giving customers cable TV for a one-time fee the reason we know this is because he had no problem telling people his scheme.
In 2016 only Ome said that he made one million dollars flipping Fire Sticks which gave him enough money to fund his next piracy venture which would make him tens of millions of dollars by this point Omi was kind of regular in the online piracy community.
Which is surprisingly large, He was known by the username Targetin1080p his YouTube channel was originally named Targetin1080p and featured videos discussing things in the IPTV space one man named Dexter took a liking to him, Dexter was a developer and Omi was the financial backbone, together they made an app for Kodi called Gears Tv inspired by his favorite video game Gears of war, gears TV was Omi’s all-in-one digital content with some of your game shows like Game Of Throne, Better Call Sall, Breaking Bad and all of the major networks like ABC, ESPN and FOX channels that are only shown in UK and Canada and even more premium packages like NFL Sunday Ticket.
Gears TV provided all that content in 1080p resolution for as low as $15 per month, if someone were to pay for a regular cable it could cost them anywhere from $60 – $200 per month. You can ask yourself, How was he able to do this?
Essentially what Omi did was purchase cable subscriptions from Comcast, Spectrum, Verizon, and Frontier Communication, These cable subscriptions come in a box that contains encrypted media Omi Purchased decoders from China to remove the encryption then capture cards to download the content and send them to the server where it would be redistributed over the internet to his subscribers Gears TV was cheap and provided way more value and content than any cable company could ever compete with and word spread first on the IPTV community.
Omi went from making $5k/week to $400/week in just a few months, the indictment claims that in total the defendants received more than 30 million dollars in subscriber fees Omi said he was still living in the hood of Philly at this point and nobody knew the kind of money he was bringing in.
His first purchase was a 2016 Camaro SS 50th his dream car keep in mind Gears TV was no small operation they have large servers and customer services representatives and the government did have their eyes on these schemes as they got more popular the monthly increased which pissed off their customers as their $15/Month turned into $20/Month then $40/Month getting closer and closer to regular cable prices Omi sold his app to a private investment company in 2018 for 40 Million Dollars, This was perhaps his most genius move because not too long after Gears TV shut down but it did not stop there.
Omi used his large payout and expertise to build a new and Improved app called Reloaded TV this was everything Gears was and more with a way better interface and high-quality content, Reloaded very quickly became one of the biggest apps in the IPTV space because of its great user interface and reliability it’s unclear what happened to reloaded TV seems it wasn’t around for very long because in 2019 Omar abandoned the target in 1080p name and changed it to Omi in a Hellcat and he stopped talking about the IPTV space as a whole.
He claims he knew the industry was dying and the Feds cracking down on other apps similar to reloaded now it is possible that Omi’s YouTube channel alerted the FBI not necessarily but it didn’t help his case.
Anyone who is in the business of distributing media knows there are others who trying to steal it but Omi’s YouTube channel promoting his own brand and attaching his own face to the scheme made it that much easier to identify the perpetrator, bragging and flaunting his wealth could piss off authorities and yeah they are human maybe they wanted to put him in that place little bit, maybe they were harsher on him than other to make an example out of him.
In one vlog Omi found out that federal agents boarded his flight to the Dominican Republic to make sure he wasn’t trying to flee the country but you have to remember that all this information we saw here his audience didn’t know about that. They had no idea why the FBI was after him, they just know Omi has to restart his life.
He also started a printing company/ merch brand under the name Reloaded where he made and sold all different types of clothing out of a room in his house, Keep in mind he had a construction business and various side hustles that kept him paid plus it’s not like the Feds emptied his bank accounts entirely Omi kept saying was broke but his version of broke was going from tens of millions to maybe just few million but it wouldn’t be long before the FBI came back.
From 2016 – 2018 When Omi made ten of million he admits that he did not pay his taxes however he had a reason he claims that the accountant he hired told him that she was CPA certified when she wasn’t and she never paid his taxes the right way but he was more than willing to pay the Millions owed however once he finally got together the money to pay his taxes it was stolen from him.
Omi Released his first Sneaker in 2022 with the name of Omi Zero which was just a Nike Jordan 1 Silhouette that replaced the swoosh with a lightning bolt he even took the Air Jordan branding and replaced it with Air Omi now taking the Nike Silhouette a shoe brand isn’t something new it was a really hot trend for the past few years.
He then added the word Reloaded on a popular team’s logo or really any iconic, Brand trade dress it’s pretty clear that Omi’s specialty is copyright infringement building an original brand is way too much work and too risky.
However, things got really bad for OMI in September 2021 when he was formally indicted with criminal copyright infringement, wire fraud, Money laundering, and several other crimes. The feds came back once again and raided his house for the second time this time he made much bigger headlines and was even interviewed on the news.
Again, you would imagine someone would be quit during this instance or at the very least have their lawyer speak for them but Omi was still convinced that he exploited the system.
Omi’s whole life at this point was dedicated to fighting this case he barely uploaded YouTube videos maybe once a month and when he did you could just tell Omi’s spirit was broken but after a month of deliberation from his Legal counsel Omi pleaded guilty in February of 2022.
On March 7th, 2023 Omi finally met his fate, United State District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Judge Harvey Bartle III acknowledged that the advisory guidelines of 24 years would be “highly unusual” for copyright matters.
Judge Harvey Bartle III decided that 66 months would be enough to punish Omar Carrasquillo and send the message to any of his followers considering the same type of behavior.
On the top of five years and a half in prison Omar got five years of supervised release, he had to forfeit $30 Million dollars worth of assets which was mostly vehicle and properties and he had to pay more than $16 Million dollars in restitution, 10 million to the cable companies and 5Millions to the IRS, surprisingly Omi was happy with this outcome.
Throughout this entire time Omi’s supporters have had his back a lot of them don’t look at him as a scammer not a fraudster probably because most people doesn’t have sympathy for billion-dollar corporations, Omi was stealing from corporations and giving their product to regular people for a fair price, He came from streets of Philadelphia and built an Empire however that Empire wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the people who created the demand in the first place Omi knows what he did wrong and he has accepted that he needs to do the time to pay what he did.
As always, let us know your thoughts on Omi In A Hellcat in the comment box