1 month ago
Rui Pinto, nan hacker down nan Football Leaks revelations that exposed dodgy dealings successful world football, was acquitted connected Wednesday of each charges successful a 2nd Portuguese trial, contempt having antecedently been convicted for akin offences.
The 37-year-old had been connected proceedings since January 2025 complete 241 alleged counts of illegally accessing email accounts belonging to respective Portuguese sports bodies, including shot nine Benfica, rule firms, magistrates and nan taxation authority.
The lawsuit was dismissed aft nan tribunal ruled that nan charges were “invalid”, arsenic it pertained to a lawsuit for which Pinto had already been tried and convicted successful September 2023.
At nan clip he was handed a four-year suspended situation condemnation for a bid of cybercrimes, arsenic good arsenic attempted extortion targeting a sports finance fund.
“The prosecution violated nan authorities of nan defendant,” who was subjected to “procedural violence”, nan tribunal said successful its ruling, quoted by respective section media outlets.
Pinto has held nan dual position of suspect and protected witnesser successful Portugal and cooperated pinch investigators successful different European countries, including France.
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At his first trial, he admitted utilizing forbidden intends to get millions of documents, which he began publishing online successful precocious 2015. Between 2015 and 2018, Pinto shared 18.6m documents connected nan net and pinch a consortium of European newspapers, which published specifications of nan revelations that shook nan shot world.
The leaks revealed nan salaries of Lionel Messi and Neymar. They besides brought world attraction to a rape allegation suit involving Cristiano Ronaldo, which was later dismissed by a US judge.
Pinto was arrested successful January 2019 by Hungarian constabulary successful Budapest, wherever he was surviving arsenic Portuguese officials sought his extradition. He spent much than a twelvemonth successful pre-trial detention earlier agreeing to cooperate pinch authorities successful different cases, granting them entree to encrypted data.
In 2023, he was fixed a six-month suspended situation condemnation successful France for hacking nan emails of Paris Saint-Germain executives. He is besides down nan “Luanda Leaks”, an investigation published successful 2020 astir Isabel dos Santos, nan girl of erstwhile Angola president José Eduardo dos Santos, who ruled for 38 years.
