The author of the “Football Leaks” revelations on the underside of football business, whose first trial is due to conclude Thursday in Lisbon, is the subject of a second procedure involving 377 computer crimes, his lawyers announced on Monday.
“This accusation is the implementation of the strategy of the public prosecutor’s office aimed at prolonging the judicial journey of Rui Pinto”, a 34-year-old Portuguese man arrested in Hungary in 2019, his defenders, Portuguese lawyer Francisco Teixeira, said in a statement. da Mota and his French colleague William Bourdon.
The facts of this part of the investigation would have been committed between 2016 and 2019, they specified, affirming that, in this new accusation, the prosecutor in charge of the file “announces that a third procedure will still follow”.
According to his lawyers, the prosecution would thus like to plunge Rui Pinto “into an endless legal battle”.
Requested by AFP, the general prosecutor’s office of the Republic did not react on Monday to this new information, revealed on Friday by the press.
According to Sabado magazine and the Lusa agency, Rui Pinto would now be prosecuted for 377 acts of computer hacking against Benfica Lisbon and other Portuguese clubs, as well as several companies, judges, prosecutors and even the tax authorities.
Both a defendant and a protected witness in his country’s justice system, Rui Pinto describes himself as a whistleblower but admitted having committed illegal computer intrusions to obtain millions of documents which he began by publishing himself on Internet at the end of 2015.
Transmitted to a consortium of European investigative media, this windfall of information brought to light questionable practices involving star players, clubs and agents, which were then the subject of tax adjustments and legal investigations in several countries.
From the publication of the salaries of Messi or Neymar to an accusation of rape against Cristiano Ronaldo, meanwhile closed without further action, passing through the strategies for circumventing the financial fair play of Manchester City or the ethnic registration at Paris Saint-Germain, the football planet was deeply shaken by this gigantic leak.
Judged by the Lisbon court since September 2020, Rui Pinto responds to 89 acts of computer hacking and attempted extortion against the investment fund Doyen Sports.
The conclusion of this trial is scheduled for Thursday at 2:00 p.m. local time (1:00 p.m. GMT).
