{"id":34309,"date":"2020-03-14T18:33:24","date_gmt":"2020-03-14T10:33:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/malaysia\/?p=34309"},"modified":"2020-03-14T18:33:24","modified_gmt":"2020-03-14T10:33:24","slug":"video-rui-pinto-hacker-hero-or-both","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/football-tribe.com\/malaysia\/2020\/03\/14\/video-rui-pinto-hacker-hero-or-both\/","title":{"rendered":"[VIDEO] Rui Pinto: Hacker, Hero, or Both?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Time to get to know the baby-faced \u201chacker\u201d facing prison for the all-time biggest reveal in the world\u2019s most popular sport.\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

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Meet Rui \u201cJohn\u201d Pedro Gon\u00e7alves Pinto, \u201cthe Snowden of international corruption\u201d.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Manchester City\u2019s <\/span>two-year ban<\/span><\/a> is just the tip of the iceberg that is <\/span>Football Leaks<\/span><\/a>. <\/span>Fans of affected clubs and some of <\/span>football\u2019s biggest names<\/span><\/a> may despise its creator for putting their dubious financial dealings (and other transgressions) in the spotlight \u2014 but for those among us who pay our taxes, and whose loyalties lie with the sport itself rather than with any particular club or player, Rui Pinto just might be a real-life hero.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Borussia Dortmund supporters speaking their minds during a match against Tottenham Hotspur at Wembley (14th February 2020).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Pinto revealed a global web of tax evasion and money laundering at the top levels of European football.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Pinto is the purported brains behind Football Leaks, a thorn in the side of football\u2019s upper crust since the nondescript blog began living up to its name in September 2015. Triggered by the <\/span>FIFA corruption scandals<\/span><\/a> that hit headlines that year, the self-professed football geek began collecting data on transfers.<\/span><\/p>\n

During an <\/span>interview<\/span><\/a> with Der Spiegel in early 2019, Pinto described how it all began, \u201cAlongside all the arrests at the international federation, I saw that there were irregularities in numerous transfers within Portugal. That more and more investors were thronging into the market. I started to collect data.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Rui Pinto giving Der Spiegel the inside scoop. Image: Maria Feck (Der Spiegel)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of those investors, a Malta-based group known as <\/span>Doyen Sports<\/span><\/a> Investment Limited, was found to have <\/span>paid for the transfer rights of seven players<\/span><\/a> in the Dutch FC Twente. This particular expos\u00e9 led to the resignation of club president Aldo van der Laan, a three-year ban for the club, a hefty fine, and an investigation into third-party ownership of player transfer rights by the Dutch Football Association (KNVB).<\/span><\/p>\n

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UEFA General Secretary Gianni Infantino said: “Third-party player ownership is a kind of modern slavery, where you see players belonging to investment funds, or other, generally unidentified, corporate entities.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Pinto\u2019s crusade against Doyen Sports eventually led to investigations into its involvement in Portuguese premier football, which dragged Portugal\u2019s top three football clubs and its headlining players into the spotlight. This culminated in the episode for which he is currently in Portuguese prison under \u201c<\/span>preventive detention<\/span><\/a>\u201d \u2014 a feature of Portugal\u2019s penitentiary system ostensibly designed to keep violent accused criminals off the streets while awaiting trial, but more often used to <\/span>psychologically break<\/span><\/a> the accused while formal charges are being drawn up.<\/span><\/p>\n

If, as Portuguese prosecutors maintain, Pinto is indeed a hacker, then he\u2019s football\u2019s Snowden.<\/b><\/p>\n

Pinto is awaiting trial for 93 charges of <\/span>illegitimate or improper access, violation of correspondence, computer sabotage, and attempted extortion <\/span>\u2014 charges that could get him ten years behind bars.<\/span> Portuguese prosecutors claim that Pinto is a hacker who broke into people\u2019s computers, illegally acquired access to email accounts, and attempted to blackmail Doyen Sports.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Like <\/span>Julian Assange<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Edward Snowden<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Chelsea Manning<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Antoine<\/span> Deltour<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Rapha\u00ebl Halet<\/span><\/a>, and the still anonymous <\/span>John Doe<\/span><\/a> behind the Mossack Fonseca leak, <\/span>Rui Pinto<\/span><\/a> is almost certain to face prison time for doing what he felt was right. But unlike some of the aforementioned names, Pinto is a university dropout with no formal training in computer science.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pinto contends that his correspondences with then Doyen CEO <\/span>N\u00e9lio Lucas<\/span><\/a> were part of his personal attempts to gauge the depth of corruption in association football by valuing his findings. <\/span>To claims that he sought to monetise his data, Pinto responds bluntly, \u201cThat\u2019s bullshit.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n