Rui Pinto, the man behind the “Football leaks”, was sentenced Wednesday at the Paris judicial court to a six-month suspended prison sentence for hacking PSG leaders. This 35-year-old Portuguese is the source of this gigantic leak of information which has deeply shaken the football world. On Wednesday, he accepted the six-month suspended prison sentence proposed by the public prosecutor and finally approved by a judge of the criminal court during an appearance hearing on prior recognition of guilt (CRPC), a sort of plea- guilty in the French way. Rui Pinto was also ordered to pay one euro in damages to PSG, which became a civil party, as well as 4,000 euros in legal costs. Beige jacket, close-cropped hair, he “recognized” before the judge the facts with which he was accused: having, between 2015 and 2019, in France, Portugal and Hungary, fraudulently accessed the mailboxes of the financial director of PSG, the director deputy general and an assistant general manager and fraudulently extracted the data.

“I accept the facts that you accuse me of. I don’t see why we should prolong a judgment any longer. I have already been in the middle of a judicial bureaucracy for five years in Portugal for facts that may be similar to those for which I am present now,” commented Rui Pinto in court. He then reiterated his “desire to cooperate with all European judicial authorities to continue to do my work”, and in particular with the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office. His lawyer William Bourdon underlined the “hybrid” situation of his client, “one of the greatest contemporary whistleblowers”, but who appeared in his country “being both a protected and accused witness”, and was sentenced in September to a suspended sentence of four years’ imprisonment.

Transmitted to a consortium of European investigative media, the wealth of information resulting from the “Football leaks” highlighted questionable practices involving star players, clubs and agents, which were then subject to tax adjustments and judicial investigations in several countries. Rui Pinto is also behind the “Luanda Leaks”, an investigation published in January 2020 accusing businesswoman Isabel dos Santos, daughter of former Angolan president Jose Eduardo dos Santos, of having accumulated an immense fortune of fraudulent manner during the reign of his father.