YouTube
The rise of the Creator Economy has given people who make a living posting stuff on the internet a ton of incentive to go to great lengths to rack up as many clicks and views as possible. Unfortunately, one YouTuber who may have gone a bit too far has landed in federal court as a result.
There are plenty of routes you can take if you’re trying to make money on YouTube, and when you consider the massive following (and fortune) MrBeast has managed to amass after building an online empire on a foundation of over-the-top stunts and borderline offensive shows of excess, it’s easy to understand why other people feel the urge to go down a similar path.
That includes Alex Choi (real name Suk Min Choi), who has amassed close to 925,000 followers on the platform on the back of a channel that specializes in what it asserts are “the greatest car shenanigans” (it features videos with titles like “BUYING ILLEGAL RACE CAR TO DRIVE ON THE STREET” and “Can a Lamborghini Tow 10,000lbs+?”).
According to The Department of Justice, his channel previously featured a now-deleted video called “Destroying a Lamborghini With Fireworks,” which involved people in a helicopter filled with oversized Roman candles shooting at the car in question as Choi sped across the El Mirage Lake salt flats in California.
The stunt was uploaded to his YouTube channel at the beginning of July last year but was eventually taken down, which probably has something to do with the fact that Choi has now been charged with “causing the placement of an explosive or incendiary device on an aircraft” in federal court.
According to the legal filing, Choi failed the get the requisite approval of the FAA before attempting a stunt that also required the blessing of the ATF, which would’ve had to issue a permit giving him permission to load fireworks onto the helicopter that was used for the video.
The affidavit says Choi admitted he traveled to Nevada to obtain the fireworks that were used because they’re illegal in California and notes the helicopter turned off its transponder for approximately seven hours after arriving in the vicinity of the salt beds where the video was filmed (in January, the FAA issued an “emergency order” stripping the pilot’s private license).
Last year, another YouTuber was sentenced to six months in jail after deliberately crashing his plane before unsuccessfully attempting to stage a coverup, and Choi is facing up to 10 years in prison if he’s ultimately convicted of the crime he’s been charged with.