Portuguese hacker Rui Pinto, who was the main character of the Football Leaks platform, received a four-year suspended prison sentence today at the Lisbon court.
Football Leaks have rocked the football world in the past decade, leading to investigations into the financial affairs of clubs and players.
The now thirty-four-year-old Pinto was found guilty by the court of unauthorized access to computer systems, interception of e-mail correspondence and attempted extortion.
The court convicted Pinto of hacking into computers belonging to the Doyen sports investment fund, the office of Portugal’s top prosecutor and a Lisbon law firm.
It has not been proven that he hacked the Portuguese Football Federation website.
Pinto’s revelations put star footballers, top clubs and influential agents in a bad light from 2015-18 and helped trigger investigations across Europe.
The website published information on the transfer fees and contracts of stars such as Neymar at Barcelona, Radamel Falcao at Monaco and Gareth Bale at Real Madrid.
Football Leaks also revealed that Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain are in breach of UEFA’s spending rules.
During the trial, Pinto admitted that he was behind the release of sensitive information, but stressed that he was a whistleblower, not a criminal.
Despite being convicted of extortion, he maintained that he was acting in the public interest, not for personal gain.
His lawyers argued that Pinto had cooperated with authorities in France, Belgium, Switzerland and Malta in investigations into financial affairs in football.
Pinto was arrested in Budapest in 2019 and extradited to Portugal. He was later released and placed in the witness protection program. The trial began in September 2020.
Authorities pardoned Pinto for several dozen minor offenses as part of an amnesty announced by the government on the occasion of Pope Francis’ visit to Portugal in August.
However, the hacker still faces another trial, as the authorities charged him with another 377 acts related to unauthorized access to computer systems. According to the AP agency, this process can also drag on for years.
2023-09-11 17:49:54
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