https://getpocket.com/explore/item/how-a-family-of-scammers-made-millions-off-fake-5-hour-energyby Andrew Fiouzi
Below the rolling hillside town and roughly 28 miles from the edge of their infinity swimming pool stood a goldmine — an unassuming gray and white warehouse near the U.S.-Mexico border with a small sign that read “Baja Exporting” in medical-blue type. Starting in 2010, the mostly windowless compound was the manufacturing and distribution hub for a burgeoning million-dollar-a-month business venture: the sale of counterfeit 5-Hour Energy.
By every account, Joseph Shayota, a 68-year-old first-generation Chaldean immigrant, was quite dapper. His eight-car garage was filled with three Range Rovers, two Mercedes, a Ferrari and a Bentley. According to court records, Joseph had a gambling problem and spent his days in casinos or hanging out in cigar shops. For a time, he also had an affair with a young woman who was living in an apartment that was listed under Adriana’s name. Unlike her husband, 49-year-old Adriana, a Catholic with Mexican ancestry, worked in the distribution office every day, according to Geoffrey Potter, a lawyer with Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler and lead prosecutor of the case against the Shayotas. “She masterminded getting this stuff out there,” he says.
Prior to their 5-Hour Energy scheme, the road to counterfeiting royalty was, for the Southern California-based couple, paved with other, less-spurious scams. In early 2009, the Shayotas, along with their co-conspirator Walid Jamil and other members of their family, resold counterfeit Equal, Splenda, Truvia, Uncle Ben’s Rice, Monster Energy drinks, Mars candy and Welch’s and Mott’s products.
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Last month — a little over a year after Joseph and Adriana were incarcerated — Adriana was granted her freedom as part of Donald Trump’s final late-night pardoning spree. (Jamil was freed in April 2020 under a compassionate release order due to the pandemic.)
