January 25 – A Portuguese man arrested in Hungary on suspicion of extortion and secrecy violations provided hacked documents to the Football Leaks website because he was “outraged” by criminality in the sport, his lawyers say.
Rui Pinto was detained on Wednesday on a European arrest warrant filed by Portuguese police who want to extradite him. His lawyers said they would oppose this.
Speaking to Reuters, the lawyers said Pinto, whom they described as a “whistleblower”, would remain under house arrest in Hungary until a decision on his extradition had been made.
German magazine Der Spiegel, which has published a series of allegations after collating information from Football Leaks and has shared access to documents with more than a dozen members of the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC), say the material came from a source who identified himself as a Portuguese man named “John”.
Pinto’s lawyers said in a statement to the media that he was “outraged with practices in the sport (football), which he believes do not dignify the players and damage their image.”
The private documents Pinto allegedly hacked included details about a number of players’ contracts and clubs’ plans and conversations. Reports say he used a string of hacking techniques to gather and leak information.
Up to 70 million documents have been provided by Football Leaks and more than 3.4 terabytes of information shared by EIC’s media outlets.
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