The trial of Rui Pinto, 36, is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. The Portuguese will have to answer for 242 alleged acts of illegal access to the mailboxes of several clubs in his country, including Benfica Lisbon, the national Football league, law firms and even magistrates or the tax authority.
In September 2023, he was sentenced by Portuguese courts to four years in prison for another series of computer crimes, as well as for attempted extortion against a sports investment fund, a decision confirmed on appeal last week . Two months later, Rui Pinto agreed to be sentenced by French justice to a six-month suspended prison sentence for hacking managers of Paris Saint-Germain.
Unlike the two previous cases, in which the Portuguese had admitted to being the source of the revelations in question, this time he denies having distributed a series of compromising emails for Benfica, in the meantime implicated by the courts in various cases relating in particular to suspicions of corruption.
Rui Pinto is both a defendant and a protected witness of the Portuguese justice system, and also cooperates with investigators from other European countries, including France. During his first trial, he admitted to committing illegal computer intrusions to obtain millions of documents that he began publishing directly on the internet at the end of 2015.
Transmitted to a consortium of European investigative media, this wealth of information highlighted questionable practices involving star players, clubs and agents, which were then the subject of tax adjustments and legal investigations in several countries.
From the salaries of Lionel Messi or Neymar to an accusation of rape against Cristiano Ronaldo, dismissed, including Manchester City’s financial fair play circumvention strategies or ethnic registration at PSG, the football world has been deeply shaken by this gigantic leak of information.
Arrested in January 2019 in Hungary, where he lived, then extradited to his country, Rui Pinto spent more than a year in pre-trial detention before agreeing to cooperate with the authorities in other cases, by allowing them access to the encrypted data he had in his possession.
