With a good start to the season, everything indicated that the waters had returned to normal at ‘Can Barça’. However, the image of blaugrana board of directors was splashed again after the publication that the club had been the victim of a scam in the summer of 2022 with the signing of Robert Lewandowski coming from Bayern.
According to the program What did you play?of the SER Catalonia channelin collaboration with the German investigative company “Paper Trail Media” and the media specialist in international investigations “Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project”, an alleged fraudster posed as Lewandowski’s agent to demand that Barça a million euros to close the operation.
In the summer of 2022, the Barca was carried out with the services of Lewandowski after paying Bayern Munich the amount of 45 million plus five in variables. Even if the operation was not as simple as it ultimately seemed. In an email, the scammer wanted the club to pay one million euros in Bank of Cyprus.
The email included the account number of Michael Gerardus Hermanus Demon, an alleged attorney. Barça accepted pay the million euros, but the Cypriot bank blocked the transfer because it was deemed inappropriate. “high risk”.
The person posing as Pini Zahavi threatened Barça with report the club before UEFA and block recording of the Polish attacker. Additionally, he pressured the bank directors to approve the cashing of the transfer.
Barça got the money back
The club acknowledges having been the victim of scam attemptbut it was never carried out since the Bank of Cyprus, by blocking the operation, returned the million euros to the club. The communication between the club and the scammer did not stop there. In 2023, Barça received two emails asking them 250,000 euros in each of them.
The board of directors of the culé, headed by Joan Laportaput the matter in the hands of the Mossos and they began to strengthen the protocols. However, according to the Catalan police, no investigation has been opened since there has been no formal complaint.
The representative’s complaint
Pini Zahavi confirmed that he does not know the scammer or the Michael Hermanus Gerardus Demon, the lawyer who appeared in the mail. The representative also did not decide to report the matter to the police because he thought it would be Barca who would do it, but that ended up not being the case.
The SER channel and the OCCRP contacted the lawyer who claims to have been the victim of the theft of his papers and that he they pretended to be.
