The Tech Bro Murders Season 1 Episode 6

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The Tech Bro Murders Season 1 Episode 6  #TheTechBroMurders #TheTechBroMurdersS1 #RealityInsightHub   🎞 Please subscribe to our official channel to watch the full movie for free, as soon as possible. ❤️Reality Insight Hub❤️ 👉 Official Channel: https://www.dailymotion.com/TrailerBolt 👉 THANK YOU ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Transcript

00:00to live and succeed in Silicon Valley you have to be willing to take risks the higher the risk

00:15the higher the reward but also the higher the risk the higher the danger sergeant Sandra Brown

00:23Palo Alto Police Department I spent my career investigating major crimes in Silicon Valley

00:28like Imad Tophilus Imad was looking for his next chapter and a lot of those guys do that they are

00:37in the tech business tech industry and they make a lot of money Robert's pitch to Imad was that he

00:42would be a partner and an investor I would estimate the profit for the first six months was about two

00:51and a half million dollars this seems like this was a match made in heaven but in Silicon Valley

00:58not everyone is who they seem to be we have a male thing help me help me that he was shot

01:07growing up living in and working in Silicon Valley I basically watched quiet little Valley grow up into

01:30this conglomerate of businesses that you can't even imagine all these major companies that didn't mean

01:38anything to us in the beginning that became huge businesses we saw an uptick of young people coming

01:45into Silicon Valley they wanted to make their dreams come true make a lot of money in tech the Bay Area in

01:53the 40 some odd years I've lived in it has changed a lot I think that the influx of Silicon Valley money

02:01in many ways has forever altered the culture and the vibe of the Bay Area it's definitely a different

02:08place Silicon Valley attracted a lot of people from everywhere from all over the place all looking

02:16to pursue whatever their dreams were this story actually starts a couple of hours south of Silicon Valley on the

02:28central coast Ahmad Tawfilis came from modest means he was a son of Egyptian immigrants his mother and his father

02:39worked so hard they put Ahmad and his brothers in private Catholic school in Salinas he excelled at

02:49academics and he also joined the cross-country team some people have said about him he ran until he almost

02:59collapsed to the ground that's how dedicated he was to excelling his parents were immigrants had

03:08sacrificed for him and for his siblings and he cared about being reputable and honest which was part of

03:18his ethos as a member of an immigrant family so Ahmad graduates from high school with honors he still comes

03:28from a modest family there's no scholarship there's no money he goes to Hartnell Community College he excels at

03:35Hartnell I mean does very very well so well that he is accepted into a master's program at Cal Poly and with

03:44that graduating from Cal Poly he has a degree in business in financing Maude was clearly a smart guy he was

03:54ambitious not in a flashy way he was very low-key and soft-spoken just a down-to-earth guy

04:00so in 1990 he's a math tutor he's already thinking about how can I make more money I think this is

04:13probably the first time he started thinking about hey I might want to go up north to this new place called

04:19Silicon Valley in the mid 90s we've seen huge growth in the internet there was a lot of appetite for

04:28getting it getting into tech and getting into the internet business the early 1990s in Silicon Valley

04:34is exciting it's the beginning of the dot-com boom a lot of companies are coming in lots of money is

04:42coming in and you know what Imad Tafilis wanted a part of that Silicon Valley celebrates risk-taking

04:50there's a sort of fortune favors the bold mentality the penalty for failure for going and trying to

04:57start a company in this valley is non-existent there is a sense of innate optimism from the people who come

05:03here that they could make it it's like the gold rush the thing that impressed me about Imad was how

05:11principled he was he was very calm and rational and he knew what his goals were he was very driven very

05:20focused and that's what these companies are looking for and Imad had all that so his first job was with

05:30Lucent Technologies so how do networks get from where they are now to where you need them to be ah here

05:41we are Lucent Technologies in the early 2000s Imad lands his dream job as a high-level finance executive

05:53with Cisco systems one of the most valuable companies in the world market cap of 500 billion

06:00dollars they focus on digital communications and they had customers like AT&T and Wells Fargo Bank if

06:09you're at Cisco and you're getting stock options you know you're gonna make a lot of money and his

06:16position as an executive put him in the right place for that so Imad's life changed after he ended up at

06:23Cisco systems Imad becoming more wealthy purchases a million dollar home in Los Gatos Los Gatos is

06:32beautiful there's a lot of beautiful mansions and beautiful homes and it's home to some of our tech

06:39grows here in Silicon Valley such as Steve Wozniak who becomes a neighbor of Imad's Los Gatos is in

06:50the heart of Silicon Valley and it's where a lot of tech people live even if they work right outside

06:58that area just because it's such a nice community he had a really nice place in Los Gatos three-bedroom

07:05ranch on a nice nice lot trees it was really pretty his success speaks for itself he was driven ambitious

07:13smart had a good education and worked hard and used his talents in the tech business and made a lot of

07:21money he was by definition very successful he is wealthy he's living in Los Gatos so his tastes are a

07:31little bit different now he's a single man he's making good money he wants to start going out to

07:41fine dining he's drinking wine he's going to all kinds of functions in Silicon Valley he's networking

07:51networking is huge in Silicon Valley he's meeting a lot of different people he is really using his wealth

07:59to his advantage Silicon Valley is where the money is this is where venture capitalists dole out huge

08:09sums of money to inventors and entrepreneurs who come in there you get to see a lot of inventors a lot

08:15of entrepreneurs come into the region to to seek their fortune he had come to Silicon Valley work in

08:26finance for large companies made some money and he wanted to do good he was interested in investing

08:35today we think about Google Netflix Amazon these companies that are so huge believe it or not in the

08:46early 2000s you could actually buy some of these large companies stock for a dollar back then when they

08:52started they were startup companies Ahmad was in the right place at the right time when those stocks were

09:00affordable and he was smart enough to jump on that and get involved in all that Silicon Valley is not just

09:06where the technology is it's where the capital is if you're interested in investing Silicon Valley creates

09:11opportunities for investing in a broad variety of things Ahmad now has millions of dollars he wanted to retire at 40.

09:22that's almost impossible for many people to retire at 40 this man knew how to make that happen and he figured it out

09:30he was very sharp on investments it really seemed like Ahmad was living his American dream and for all intents and

09:38purposes I thought it was pretty awesome because he retired from a tech career and he was going to get into things he enjoyed doing

09:45Ahmad dedicated his entire life to business and now that he's retired he sets his sights on industries

09:54where he might be able to leave his mark entrepreneurs are famous for investing in many things some of them

10:01are very risky and failing is part of the game you could fail many many times but if you succeed once and

10:05you get your unicorn your billion-dollar company it makes all the failures worth it

10:11Silicon Valley is all about money but money can be the root of all evil and sometimes that money and that idea

10:21about money can send people down a very dark path you talk about money greed those are big motivations for

10:28murder sometimes but I never in a million years would have dreamt that this whole thing would have turned to murder

10:36in Silicon Valley if you're in the right place at the right time and you have the right amount of

10:48money to invest it'll change your life drastically Ahmad was a very savvy investor his investment skyrocketed

10:57to the point where in 2007 he was able to retire at the age of 40 he's a millionaire he's living the life

11:05Ahmad was living his version of the American dream and he was prepared to move on to the next chapter of

11:16his life Ahmad was clearly a good business person he'd been very successful in what he had done with

11:23well-known companies and now he was interested in investing in things that were of interest to him

11:33one of Ahmad's first big investments was in filmmaking this is the movie Jimmy Vespa American Hero that I

11:43directed in 2014 starring a really really funny Persian comic named Maz Jobrani Maz Jobrani the star of the

11:55movie and producer when he was trying to raise money had a crowdfunding or an event in Silicon Valley where

12:01Ahmad and he met he was interested in film so he decided to invest in it Ahmad was the principal investor

12:07he was there on set he's what you want an investor he was hands-off he let people do their thing and he

12:13wasn't sort of getting overstep Ahmad is not a Hollywood guy he's a Silicon Valley guy but I think this was an

12:23opportunity where Ahmad thought I'm gonna invest money into this movie and hope that I can get my

12:30money back it's risky at the Austin Film Festival we won all these awards it's exciting to be the the

12:41cool kid at a festival he was very excited enthusiastic about it that movie would never have happened without

12:49him he was a really really great sweet guy so now Ahmad was thinking he could invest his money into something

12:59else his next decision would seem small but the consequences were huge he started thinking I want

13:13to work smarter not harder so he starts to invest his money and things that are high risk high reward but

13:25unfortunately every risk is not always worth taking and Ahmad's gonna find that out

13:30Ahmad was always interested in wine not that he was much of a drinker per se but he got introduced to

13:43it by some of his colleagues Ahmad was attracted to wine in many ways because of the lifestyle I think

13:54people come from Silicon Valley to the Napa Valley because it has been sold so well it is a lifestyle it is the

14:03romance of the wine business that people are drawn to people have a vision in their head of a vineyard on a

14:12rolling hill with a nice little stone building where the wine is made

14:16you might thought it was interesting and sexy and potentially lucrative because that was important

14:25to him and he was prepared to move on to the next chapter of his life which was to make certain

14:31investments and things that you were of interest to him his dream was like a lot of people's to come to the

14:40wine country and start a winery and make great wine drink great wine eat a good restaurants and live that

14:46lavish lifestyle since the tech broke culture kind of began it makes sense for somebody in Silicon Valley

14:55who's made lots of money to want to do something with that money by branching out and investing in other

15:00kinds of other kinds of things especially conspicuous things whether it's rockets or planes or in this case wine

15:15So in July of 2011 Ahmad is introduced to Robert Dahl who sold a multi-million dollar company and he moved from

15:23Minnesota to Napa he has a company called patio wines and he's quickly becoming one of the largest wine

15:31distributors in Napa Valley Robert was very affable and friendly seemed like a decent person a charismatic

15:43good-looking businessman Robert wanted to grow the business and Robert can convince people to give him their

15:56money and their trust because he was full of charisma when I met Robert I saw Robert as an ambitious

16:06businessman who didn't buy into the Napa hype which there's a lot of I mean there's a

16:13lot of egos in the wine business and most of them are concentrated in that valley they didn't seem to

16:19have that Robert just wanted to make a profitable business and be in the wine business and he had a

16:29bottling facility so we would buy wine from other wineries and then we would blend it to the customers

16:36desires to the customers taste and bottle it the kind of business that he was starting well there

16:43aren't too many of them not certainly not in that area and people want that bottled in Napa on the

16:48back label and you can do that when you have that kind of facility in 2012 we were shipping a pallet a day

16:59direct-to-consumer 672 bottles that's a lot when you talk about direct-to-consumer shipping

17:05Robert's pitch to Imad was that he would be a partner and an investor Imad said that Robert

17:14was very impressive and I don't think that Imad was impressed by too many people

17:21Robert's entity patio wine company had licensing deals with Adam Carolla the comedian and E40 the rapper

17:32famous people and he shared that with Imad and that helped in Imad's mind to solidify the legitimacy and

17:45the bona fides of Robert Dahl and the business that he had if people of this influence are going to do

17:52business with Robert Imad's in good shape when I worked for patio wine company we had a couple

18:03celebrity clients that we made product for it started with Adam Carolla because I was a fan I

18:11listened to his podcast every day and he would talk about this cocktail that he made he called it Mangria

18:17when did this idea come around that you were going to invest in and be part of the liquor business

18:23so to speak um I as a goof made myself something called Mangria at home just because I was kind of

18:31screwing around so I emailed his manager I had a listener up north and uh and he was in the business

18:42of making this stuff and I said you guys talk about this on the podcast I can make it I can produce this

18:49for you on a commercial level and you can sell it and make money and I sent him samples and they said

18:55okay this is great let's do it and 100 days after that we were bottling the product Mangria

19:02Adam Carolla's signature cocktail enjoy over ice it was going really well we had a sales guy working

19:14for the winery at the time who said hey I know a rapper who would be interested in doing this too and I

19:22made samples sort of based on the same model that we used for Carolla and he 40 liked the samples and

19:29we started producing wine for him we were bottling tens of thousands of cases of product for just these

19:41two which you know impressed Imad we were shipping around five to six truckloads of wine a month I would

19:53estimate the profit for the first six months was about two and a half million dollars

19:59so Imad finally comes to the decision that he's ready to invest in Robert Dahl's patio wines to the

20:07tune of 1.2 million this payment is going to come into two parts of the 1.2 million the first one is

20:17400,000 which he's going to wire into Robert Dahl's bank account as collateral Imad's going to take 97%

20:25of patio wines assets Imad being this financial person looks at this deal and says this is very

20:33fair I'm investing in one of the largest wine distributors in the valley you want to talk about

20:41perfect Robert Dahl is looking for someone to invest in his business and Imad looking for something to

20:49invest in and he loves wine this seems like this was a match made in heaven and in a lot of ways

20:57business partnerships can be like romantic relationships communication is key and trust is

21:05foundational but growing up living and working in Silicon Valley I got to be honest with you not

21:13everyone is who they seem to be Imad making his money in Silicon Valley was very successful and he

21:27meets Robert Dahl who's involved in the winemaking business in Napa Valley Robert Dahl's looking for seed

21:34money for his latest wine venture and Imad wants to invest in the wine business so these two guys

21:40are perfect for each other it appears I think Imad was looking for something to do I think he was

21:47looking for his next chapter I think he wanted to be involved with the culture of the wine business and if

21:55you want to be in the wine business there's not a better place to be in the US than in Napa

22:00so Robert gave Imad something called a private placement memorandum the document said that Robert

22:13would repay the investment with interest the interest rate that Robert had agreed to pay was 20 percent

22:22a lot of people would see 20 percent interest as a red flag but Imad doesn't see it that way he sees

22:34this as an opportunity he has to take Imad of course was living in Silicon Valley and Robert was in Napa and

22:46so Imad was not their day-to-day and the deal basically was Robert's running the show but he's

22:55going to consult with Imad on major decisions an investor like Imad adds value not just in the cash

23:00that he can bring but in his skills when Imad invested patio wine company was making a lot of

23:07money with Adam Carolla and E40 but Robert he wasn't interested in that he was never interested in

23:14having somebody else's name on a bottle of wine he was making that's not what he wanted he wanted to

23:20be somebody in the Napa Valley so Robert decided Im opening a winery in Yauntville called Dahl Vineyards

23:32I think Dahl Vineyards was entirely ego driven

23:36welcome to Dahl Vineyards in lovely Yauntville California this month's wine club shipment includes

23:41our 2012 reserve Pinot Noir from Russian River and our 2013 Chardonnay from Yauntville enjoy

23:48so after Imad makes the initial $400,000 investment in patio wines Robert tells Imad that he needs the rest of

23:59the money in cash Imad's first investment of $400,000 with Robert Dahl was repaid per the terms of the

24:10agreement and so Imad decided to honor Robert's request and he invested another $800,000 in cash it seemed

24:25like an odd way to invest in a wine company to put $800,000 in cash into a red duffel bag drive up from

24:37Los Gatos in Silicon Valley to the winery and hand him this cash it sounds like something out of a movie

24:48when I found out that he brought him $800,000 in cash I was a little suspect about even where Imad

24:57came up with $800,000 in cash it's hard to come up with that kind of cash even if you have that in

25:01your bank or your stocks or whatever it's hard to go to a bank and say hey I need 800 grand in

25:06hundreds or whatever so yeah I was shocked so where that came from who knows

25:12after Imad brought him 800,000 cash Robert Dahl was going to pay Imad back for his investment $40,000 a

25:24month and in the beginning he does but after a while two months went by and Imad hadn't gotten paid Imad feels

25:34very betrayed by this he put his trust in Robert Dahl and now Robert's playing him for a fool

25:45so Imad decides I need to get an attorney

25:52in 2013 I got a phone call from Imad he explained his predicament I discovered that

26:04Robert had canceled patio wine company

26:11after we discovered the information Imad found Don King who's a retired FBI agent to investigate Robert

26:20Imad called me on the phone and told me that he was in litigation with a business partner and he wanted

26:27me to do a background on this individual and then he told me the name of the person Robert Dahl

26:33and I immediately knew who Robert Dahl was because I'd already done a background investigation on him for

26:39another company he had several lawsuits actually pending in Napa they had a lot of liens and judgments

26:46against him he had been a convicted felon in Minnesota he had done jail time

26:53the money that Imad had invested with him was not being used for their wine investment that money was

27:03being used for the new winery that he had opened Dahl vineyards so it was clear that Robert was not owning

27:11up to his end of the partnership

27:15Don King discovers that Imad is not the only person that's not getting paid

27:20Robert Dahl is not paying for the lease of the vineyard that he's working on he's not paid for

27:24the grapes that he's supposed to harvest and he's created an entire list of enemies in the Napa Valley

27:31I think there were several people that he wasn't paying or that he had taken money from

27:37I remember having a conversation with Robert and saying you know for us to be wildly profitable you

27:42only have to make two people happy these two celebrities who are selling this product if you just

27:49keep them happy they will sell a lot of wine we will make a lot of money that's not what was happening

27:55in Robert's brain as far as he was concerned the only person that should be making money was him

28:02and he wanted to keep it all for himself they weren't getting paid the profit that they were owed to the

28:08tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars it was an ugly situation when we filed the lawsuit in Napa

28:18to protect Imad's interest we ultimately were able to get an order that effectively shut down the winery

28:32all of this was really part of a strategy to have Robert come back to the table do what he said he

28:40would do to see if there was some way to restore the relationship

28:45afterwards Robert Dahl calls Imad and says look I need you to come out and look at some things at the winery

28:57I want to do a face-to-face meeting

29:00a lot of people tell Imad not to go probably not a good idea but he goes anyway

29:07with all of this going on Imad's becoming very angry Imad was you know a quiet guy but he was

29:18desperate desperate people do desperate things and he became more and more desperate as the time went on

29:26Robert owed a lot of money to a lot of people but he had a beef with a lot more there were a lot of

29:39people that just plain didn't like him didn't trust him didn't want to do business with him didn't want

29:44him around the problem I think that Imad had with Robert Dahl is that Robert Dahl mistook kindness for

29:51weakness and that was a grave mistake that Robert made

29:58a lot of the homicides that we investigate are based on money especially in Silicon Valley

30:05to live and succeed in Silicon Valley you have to be willing to take risks

30:11the higher the risks the higher the reward but also the higher the risk the higher the danger

30:18when Imad handed Robert Dahl eight hundred thousand dollars in cash he took a gamble

30:26he made a bet that he could trust Robert Dahl and now he stood to lose a considerable amount of his

30:33fortune but Imad isn't someone who's going to back down we have a male saying help me help me that

30:43he was shot be advised the subject saying that he has been shot again twice now

30:52a betrayal like this can feel personal

31:02after working with Robert Dahl for about two years

31:04two months went by and Imad hadn't gotten paid Imad is just completely stressed out

31:13he had no idea his money wasn't going towards patio wines

31:18it's not working as business partners any longer they're going to have to work out a deal

31:24so Robert Dahl calls Imad and says look we're getting really close

31:29I need you to come out and look at some things at the winery so can you meet me

31:33I want to do a face-to-face meeting

31:37I was talking to Imad and he said I've been texting with Robert and we've been talking on

31:46the phone occasionally and I really think he wants to negotiate in good faith and resolve this

31:52what I told him at that point was no Robert has no interest in resolving this in an amicable way

32:07Robert's lawyer said he would like you and Imad to go meet him at the winery

32:15I told him I don't think it's a good idea I don't want to go to the winery if Robert's lawyers aren't

32:20there I shouldn't be there I don't see why you'd want to go there but that's that's your call

32:29Imad said I need to get my life back

32:38so Imad did go to the winery

32:41we had arranged to have a dial-in at the winery myself and uh Robert's two lawyers

32:56Imad gets here a few minutes early normally when Robert would greet Imad it was always sort of a bro

33:03hug or a handshake and it wasn't like that at all he was glowering he had a very dour expression

33:12so we we get on the phone Robert starts the meeting which was also somewhat unusual

33:19and he said I don't give a what the lawyers agreed to and essentially said that he would pay

33:2850 percent of our agreed number instead of the other so Robert's lawyers to their credit to David

33:36we need to go offline and talk to our client Imad called me up and he said he was going to go back in

33:44and talk to Robert and he would contact me when we're ready to get going

33:49a long time passed several minutes and it made no sense i just had this weird vibe and this weird

33:59feeling so i tried to call Imad several times and i left several voicemails and i didn't get a call back

34:07so when Imad comes back into the barn

34:13Robert Dahl has another contract Imad looks at this contract he's i'm not signing this i've never even

34:19seen this before the settlement agreement that Robert had drafted basically would have had Imad confess

34:27this whole thing was a ruse to destroy Robert's good reputation in Napa that Imad wasn't owed any

34:34money and that he regrets all the pain that he's caused to Robert Dahl which Robert obviously knew

34:40wasn't going to be signed so Imad he looks up and Robert Dahl has pulled out a gun and he's pointing

34:47it at Imad saying you're going to sign this contract you're signing this contract

34:53all of a sudden i get an email about shots being fired at this address

35:01at this point Imad's running for his life

35:15when Imad comes back into the barn he looks up and Robert Dahl has pulled out a gun

35:23and he's pointing it at Imad saying you're going to sign this contract you're signing this contract

35:27Imad's calling 911 saying i've been shot by Robert Dahl he's shooting at me again

35:35we have a male saying help me help me that he was shot the advising subject saying that he

35:42has been shot again twice now Robert is in the truck chasing Imad he was taking shots at him as he

35:51was running through the vineyard Robert starts chasing him down waving his gun out

35:57of the window Imad was running and talking on the phone to 911 out to the end of the vineyard where he collapsed

36:11the police arrive at the vineyard

36:16they can see Robert get out of his black suv they see Imad on the ground and they see

36:21Robert execute Imad two shots

36:28killed him murdered him right there on the street

36:35this chase ensued immediately

36:41went up a very mountainous road all the way almost to the top

36:45been turned off on a street called wall road

36:51when they find the suv which has run into a grove of trees

36:56they run up guns drawn they get up they're trying to call the driver out

37:02when they get there they find out that Robert Dahl has committed suicide

37:06he shot and killed himself

37:12it was shocking to know that somebody in the wine business murdered a business associate

37:21back at the tasting room investigators find black gloves duct tape zip ties and bleach

37:27it's essentially a murder kit

37:29my thought at the time which is only cemented over the years is that this was a planned ambush

37:39that there's no question that Robert had intended to shoot and kill Imad

37:46you never have Clorox in a winery it's not good for the wine here you've got Clorox bleach

37:51there in the winery it looked like it was premeditated

37:55i do believe those things were there specifically to get rid of the body

38:03the police had found among other things a hit list with several names on it myself included but

38:09not limited to me Robert had a lot of pretty bad intentions had i been there you and i wouldn't be

38:17having this conversation i mean it's horrible i think about this every day

38:21it's unfortunate because when you stand back and look at this picture

38:28is it worth it to murder a business partner

38:35over 1.2 million dollars

38:40it's hard to say why things like this happen except that Robert was a sociopath

38:45one of the lessons that in my mind was kind of highlighted by this is that if something seems

38:56too good to be true like getting a 20 return on your money from a business that's just starting it

39:04probably is too good to be true what's surprising about this story is uh how poorly vetted his investment

39:10was in mr doll it seems like that guy had a history uh before coming to california of of investments gone

39:18astray it wasn't the fact that to phyllis invested in it that surprised me it was the fact that you

39:26would invest eight hundred thousand dollars without properly vetting the individual who you're entrusting

39:31this money to it was definitely striking like if you're not a millionaire it would be almost unheard

39:40of but if you have money to burn it seems kind of more reasonable it is a common story in silicon valley

39:47for every company that becomes a huge success there are many others that we just don't hear about

39:52the only time we hear about failures is when they fail spectacularly when you see massive fraud or when

39:57people go to jail but that's just kind of uh the nature of being in a highly competitive very high

40:03risk arena which silicon valley famously is so john in your relationship with imad you noticed that he

40:13was really involved in wine right did he ever mention robert doll you know he may have and at that time i

40:21would have just sort of assumed it was this guy a business partner he was working with so after you read

40:26the articles and got the information that name never came back to your mind that he spoke about

40:31this guy earlier yeah no imad was a really straight shooter he was a good guy it hurt it's sad this guy

40:41who who brought a lot to life that should be alive absolutely should be alive seems like imad was living in

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