The friends of the Blues pillar were found guilty of having kidnapped him, then blackmailed him in 2022, to obtain 13 million euros. A few months earlier, the footballer had decided to distance himself from this group of childhood relatives who lived on his hooks.
End of the game for the blackmailers. This Thursday, the Paris criminal court sentenced Paul Pogba’s five childhood friends to sentences ranging from 2 to 8 years in prison according to BFMTV and Ouest France, recognizing them guilty of having kidnapped the footballer with a view to extorting him 13 million euros, in March 2022, then having exercised blackmail and pressure on him for several months.
Arrested separately among the others, Mathias Pogba, the player’s older brother, was sentenced to 2 years in prison, suspended and 1 year fixed. This one-year sentence will be placed under an electronic bracelet. The court also sentenced Paul Pogba’s brother to a fine of 20,000 euros for having participated in the 2022 extortion attempt of 13 million euros targeting his brother and for having exerted numerous pressure on the French international, his family and professional relationships in order to obtain this payment.
At the time, he had participated in the pressure under the influence of Paul Pogba’s friends, by going to his Juventus training center to force him to pay this sum, and by publishing two videos on the networks social. After having, in the first, promised to reveal information which could destroy the career of his little brother, he assured, in the second, that the international had paid a marabout to cast a spell on his teammate of the team of France, Killian Mbappé.
In January 2024, at the heart of the judicial investigation, Mathias Pogba subsequently regretted his involvement, and explained that he had been exploited by this gang from La Renardière, the city where everyone grew up in Roissy-en-Brie, in Seine- and-Marne. They then assured him that two robbers would attack Paul Pogba and his entire family if he did not give them the 13 million euros. “I was everyone’s puppet. I was thrown around from left to right, I was lied to from the start. What an idiot”had growled Matthias Pogba, facing the judge.
Corrupted by money
For years, the defendants had been living off the player, who continued to occasionally return to the city of his youth, on the sidelines of his international career. From November 26 to December 5, the debates at the hearing highlighted their childhood ties corrupted by money.
But, at the end of 2021, the footballer, then licensed at Manchester United, had distanced himself, tired of their opportunism, and the deleterious climate that they created during his visits to La Renardière. Until this evening of March 19, 2022. The five friends then took Paul Pogba to an apartment in Montévrain, a few kilometers from the neighborhood, where they held him all night. There, two hooded and armed robbers threatened him and ordered him to pay 13 million euros. According to them, the player owes them this sum on the grounds that they ensured his security without his knowledge, for ten years.
Neither the two years of investigation, nor the debates at the hearing, will have made it possible to understand the exact place of these robbers, and their relations with the Renardière group. Each of the defendants claims to have been personally threatened by the two men in the months following the kidnapping of Paul Pogba. One of them, Roushdane K., who appeared detained, said in particular that he was shot in the hand, at point blank range, so that he “put pressure on Paul” who didn’t pay. But none of the five accused has ever given any precise information about these men, leaving a hypothesis floating, revived by their silence during the trial: that of a group of friends who enlist armed criminals to put pressure on the footballer, and the racketeer.
Razzia at Adidas
The attitude of some, just after the evening of March 19, 2022, particularly surprised the court. A few days after the footballer’s confinement, he presented himself at the Adidas store on the Champs-Élysées, with which he had signed a sponsorship contract. This time, he makes it available to two of his blackmailers who accompany him, Adama C. and Machikour K. The accomplices engage in a raid in the store, and leave with hundreds of sporting articles, for a total amount of… 57,000 euros. “How do we go, in a few days, from “we’ve just experienced a shock to “it’s unlimited, let’s go?”the skeptical president of the court asked Adama C.
For its part, the defense worked to present the defendants as collateral victims of the player’s confinement. “I feel like we’re in a reverse Cluedo”had quipped Me Karim Morand-Lahouazi, avocat d’Adama C. “Instead of asking everyone to put the name of the culprit, the weapon and the location in the envelope, we were told from the outset: it’s Colonel Mustard with a candlestick in the library”he continued, denouncing “a chargeable instruction”. “All elements exonerating the defendants are swept away”added Me Steve Ruben, counsel for Mamadou M., before accusing the prosecution of having “imagined an action film scenario”.
Invited to speak one last time, before the court adjourned, each of his friends had a thought for Paul Pogba, who was absent from the trial. On the stand, one of them, Boubacar C., concluded with these words: “Paul knows who he is to me, I will always keep him in my heart.”
