YouTuber Pete Zogoulas reveals he was charged with stalking for videos exposing alleged ‘scammers'

News.com.au

6 days ago

A popular Aussie prank YouTuber has revealed how his home was raided by police and he nearly spent eight years in prison over videos exposing alleged 'scammers'.
Pete Zogoulas, who has 251,000 subscribers to his Pete Z channel, had gained viral fame for his 'sneak-in' videos, filming himself trespassing in various locations including theme parks, hotels and planes.
The 25-year-old abruptly stopped posting new content a year ago. On Saturday, Zogoulas returned with a 26-minute video explaining his absence.
'I went to prison because of YouTube,' he said.
The video opens up with police bodycam footage of the August 10, 2024 raid on his Brisbane home.
'So Pete, as I said before, I do have a search warrant for this premises, OK?' an officer tells Zogoulas as he sits on his couch looking shell-shocked.
'And now you're detained under that search warrant. I have to let you know that you have the right to remain silent. So if you do answer any questions or make any statement, it may later be used as evidence.'
Zogoulas went on to explain that he had landed in hot water after pivoting from his sneak-in videos, which he said looking back were 'pretty messed up', to exposing alleged scammers.
'I knew my life's purpose was not for me to just be sneaking in and trespassing and doing all those kinds of things,' he said.
'So I thought to myself, how do I go from someone who does bad things to making content that actually helps people? I made a massive pivot in my content, which was to do exposing scammer videos. Now I thought this was the most innocent kind of videos that I could possibly have done where I finally felt like I was doing something good for the society and I was doing good for people.'
Zogoulas said he was confused when his first scammer videos, titled 'I Exposed A Scammer On His Own Local Billboard' and 'I Scammed A Scammer', were taken down by YouTube after generating millions of views, and his Instagram account was banned.
Then came 'the worst day of my life'.
In bodycam footage, police inform Zogoulas that the search warrant is 'in relation to a stalking matter'.
Zogoulas said the stalking charge stemmed from his use of an AirTag — hidden in a Star Wars Mandalorian piggy bank — to track an individual as part of his own investigation.
'It wasn't like I was actually following him to his house or anything like that, but under the law that's technically stalking, I suppose,' he said.
'So, there's that. And then for me to actually post the video goes under cyber-bullying and harassment. I didn't have any bad intent and it still didn't matter. Still technically a law is broken according to them.'
Footage showed police seizing a number of electronics, along with the AirTag and Mandalorian piggy bank, from Zogoulas' room.
Zoglouas was charged with unlawful stalking in relation to incidents on April 8 and July 1, 2024, and using a carriage service to 'menace, harass or cause offence'.
He was also hit with two additional, unrelated trespass charges from a year earlier.
'All I was trying to do was make content to help people who had been scammed by scammers,' Zoglouas said.
'Isn't it ironic that police would never help me catch a scammer, but then they help a scammer catch me for putting them in my videos? Like, it's kind of crazy.'
Zoglouas argued the charges were 'pretty excessive'.
'There's actual people committing dangerous acts in the name of those charges, those crimes, and then you just get me for doing a YouTube video,' he said.
He was taken to Brisbane Watch House and placed in a holding cell 'like a little box'.
'They eventually took me out of that and put me into an actual holding cell, like a larger one with like five other people,' he said.
'They were asking me like, 'Oh, is this your first time?''
Zoglouas said he was held in jail for five hours before he was charged and released on bail, to appear in Brisbane Magistrates Court on January 29.
Under his bail conditions, Zoglouas was prohibited from contacting the alleged victims, approaching them or attending certain locations, or publishing any information or images of them on social media.
It wasn't until his first court date that Zoglouas realised the gravity of his situation and the potential prison time he was facing.
The stalking offence carried a maximum penalty of five years in prison, while the harassment charge risked up to three years.
Eventually Zoglouas' lawyers reached a deal with prosecutors to have the two more serious charges dropped if he undertook Adult Restorative Justice Conferencing, or justice mediation, and plead guilty to the trespass charges.
'I have to speak to this … mediator and then have the two victims on the other side where I like, you know, have to sign some agreements, like apologise and really understand what I did wrong, et cetera,' he said.
Zoglouas was also required to pay compensation.
'It all made sense to me why this all happened, why those scammer videos were getting taken down,' he said.
'The police officers, the [prosecutors], were constantly reporting those videos. That is the reason why, because they were charging me with those crimes. They saw what I did to them, which was expose what they were doing, and then they thought they want to take it out with revenge on me. So that's how I saw it anyway.'
Zoglouas appeared in court in April where he avoided a conviction on the trespass charges.
'It is finally over,' he said. 'After eight months we actually did it. We went from a conviction to only getting an $800 fine.'
Zoglouas said he was relieved the ordeal was finally over and he could return to making videos.
'I could have done up to eight years in prison,' he said.
'I'm going to have to really gain your trust again and I'm excited to do that … I love you guys.'
Zoglouas has been contacted for comment.
'As this matter has been finalised through the courts, it would be inappropriate for us to comment further,' a Queensland Police spokeswoman told news.com.au.