Please Do Not Buy the $350 5GBioShield Scam

A few weeks ago we reported on the conspiracy theory that 5G wireless signals cause coronavirus, a theory which seemed to cause a pandemic of cell tower arson. Now that same panic has lent some British scammers a foothold. The suspiciously new startup 5GBioShield is selling USB sticks for around $350 per stick, claiming that the diminutive storage devices use “proprietary holographic nano-layer catalyst technology” to protect you from “all harmful radiation, electro-smog & biohazard pollution.”

Needless to say, this is fake. The 5GBioShield website uses a number of well known propaganda techniques to appear as a real company. Users are depicted sitting outside on green lawns on a beautiful day with a sunrise in the distance, happy and secure in the knowledge that they are protected by a 5GBioShield. The header of 5GBioShield’s website, hosted on WordPress (just as this newspaper is), contains a brave lion and Saint George slaying a dragon, both familiar symbols of England. All of this imagery is designed to disguise the fact that none of 5GBioShield’s claims are even close to true.

As shown above, the 5G Bio Shield claims to “quantum oscillate,” “restore coherence of atoms,” and “emit life force frequencies.” All of these phrases sound as though they could have been taken straight out of particularly bad old Star Trek episodes, technical-sounding but completely unsupported by any real world science. Surprisingly, the bottom of 5G Bio Shield’s website does reference a team, even putting their photos up on the site.

Research Professor Dr. Ilija Lakicevic and Clinical Pharmacist Jacques Bauer supposedly founded the company together. We reverse image searched those photos to find out who they really are. Mr. Bauer’s photo turned up one result across all of Google, an obscure French language chat forum hosted by jeuxvideo.com, where participants were arguing about the supposed merits of astrology. Mr. Bauer’s photo did not appear to be included, but it is an active thread so it is likely that an old post containing his photo was pushed off the page and deleted. You can see it here.

Mr. Bauer claims to have worked for the Colombier Prevention and Health Center in Switzerland. However, there is no record of any individual matching his description working for any such institution, nor is there any record of his involvement with his other supposed employer, Institute for Alternative Care and Holistic Therapies in Belgium. Google’s best guess for the identity of Dr. Ilija Lakicevic’s photo is “senior citizen”.

As a research professor who “has dedicated his life to discover self and true concepts and laws of creation”, the only signs of him on the internet are a few blogs proclaiming that “Cosmos is Mind-Soul Energy” and a reference to the same jeuxvideo.com forum thread mentioned above. It is curious that the two founders of 5GBioShield were first and last seen on the internet discussing astrology, in French, on an anonymous forum. The most likely explanation is that these two are stock photos being used by French forum attendees as fake profile images, just as they are likely being used by 5GBioShield.

As for the 5GBioShield itself, after the device was promoted by a member of Glastonbury Town Council’s “5G Advisory Committee” a group of scientists bought a few of them and took them apart. They found two components, a 128 MB USB stick, and a sticker. There is nothing special about this USB stick. Its estimated market value is about six dollars. As Phil Eveleigh, one of the researchers who took apart a 5GBioShield, declared after the experiment, “Now we cannot say this sticker does not have additional functionality unused anywhere else in the world, but we are confident you can make up your own mind on that.”

When BBC news reached out to 5GBioShield for comment, the company unabashedly defended their scam with, “In regard to the costs analysis your research has produced, I believe that the lack of in-depth information will not drive you to the exact computation of our expenses and production costs, including the cost of IP [intellectual property rights], and so on.” They also attempted to reassert the claim on their website that, “The 5GBioShield USB Key is resulting from research of several decades in multiple countries.”

Let us be perfectly clear: there is no research to support this. There is no such thing as “proprietary holographic nano-layer catalyst technology.” 5G does not harm you. If you really want a 5GBioShield, buy the six dollar USB stick and sticker separately and make it at home. You’ll get the same results and save $344.