"Norway’s Mark Zuckerberg", the 18 year old who fooled politicians and the royal family

The charismatic young entrepreneur Waleed Ahmed started his own company at age 18, and was referred to as “The Norwegian Mark Zuckerberg”. He quickly gained access to politicians, diplomats, and royalty. His short-lived and grandiose career ended with an arrest by the FBI and an 11-year prison sentence for fraud. This portrait tells a larger narrative of belonging, identity, fraud, and dreams. Why did Waleed Ahmed become a conman?

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The film explored how the young entrepreneur and media darling known as "Norway's Mark Zuckerberg" ends up being arrested by the FBI and sentenced to 11 years in prison. Emil Trier (The Other Munch) says the film will be both a coming of age film and a biopic focusing on Waleed Ahmed's youth and high school years, through interviews with the protagonist, his family and friends.
Waleed Ahmed's rise and fall reminds us of Elizabeth Holmes and her medical testing startup Theranos, or of the greatest financial fraudster, Bernie Madoff. And yet nothing destined this young man to reach the top of the world. The child of Pakistani immigrants, however, was subject to the social and economic determinisms of his country, he did not attend the best schools, nor did he have any references. But ambition can sometimes be greater than all the obstacles. And it is precisely this consuming ambition that will lead him to swindle hundreds of millions of euros from investors and fool his friends, and the Norwegian government.
The story of Waleed Ahmed begins like a fairy tale, out of nowhere, this young man of barely 18 years claimed to have invented the solar-powered battery charger. This Invention which proposes an ecological alternative immediately attracts the eye of all, the media very quickly nicknames him "The Norwegian Mark Zuckerberg" and the Norwegian government decides to accompany him financially in the development of his invention. Moreover, the Minister of Trade and Industry, Trond Giske, does not fail to praise it and to accompany it on the TV sets. Waleed Ahmed becomes the very example of the success story of a child of immigrants and thus of Norway's integration policy. His newfound fame led him to meet the world's most influential people, including Barack Obama, Kofi Annan, Ted Turner and the royal family. And this gives him more and more credibility in the eyes of all and investors. But behind the appearances, the reality is quite different. Everything he claimed to have invented was false, a fraud. But the one who wants to be the richest and most famous man on the world, does not want to stop there, he also wants to enjoy luxury, money, all the things that were inacessible to this son of second-generation immigrants.
the fall will be rough, and will even take epic proportions with this arrest by the FBI after having made believe to own the exclusive rights to Justin Bieber concerts in Scandinavia.
During his trial, he was quickly made to understand that he could endure a life sentence. He will say, full of nihilism, that "we are devils and we are here to create hell". He was sentenced to a long term of 11 years in an American high security prison.
He was released in February 2022.
This documentary shows the devouring passions of a man, a manipulator who sought to trangress social classes, to extract himself from the fatalism of being a child of immigration, dreaming of a future but this future he wanted right away without waiting and it is precisely this greed that will lead him both to the top of the world but also to his own fall.

Original title - Trust Me
Written and directed by Emil Trier

© 2021, Licensed by First Hand Films

#documentary #scandal #business #norway #scam #fraud

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