Rui Pinto, creator of the electronic platform Football Leaks, which starts to be judged on Friday, classified Benfica this Wednesday as “an octopus of influence” and said that those responsible for the club “think they dominate the country”.
This club is like an octopus of influence. There is a very important detail that I want the public to think about. At the same time that the Portuguese authorities were sending a request to the Hungarian authorities to extend my European arrest warrant, the Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs received two VIP tickets for Benfica games and met at the Benfica stadium. This is Benfica ”, said Rui Pinto, in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel, published by Expresso today.
Rui Pinto states that “after Benfica’s e-mails were published, everyone began to realize that the managers’ modus operandi was to extend their influence, often out of courtesy, to achieve their goals” and understands that the club “was a of the parties most interested in extending the European arrest warrant ”.
The creator of Footbal Leaks, the platform through which he released thousands of confidential documents from the football world and alleged tax evasion schemes committed in several countries, guarantees that he does not consider himself a hacker and defends the role of the whistleblower (whistleblower) .
Someone looking for, receiving and analyzing information regarding relevant crimes such as corruption and tax fraud and decides to share it with international media or directly with the authorities should be considered a whistleblower. Take the Panama Papers as an example. Today, most people have already forgotten that it was an act of ‘hacking’ (hacking) ”, he says.
Rui Pinto, who is at liberty and, for security reasons, inserted in the witness protection program in an undisclosed location and under police protection, admits to feeling “a little sad because Football Leaks did not achieve everything he expected at the beginning ”.
For whistleblowers, the world of football is not the easiest place to enter. I think Football Leaks was one of the most dangerous leaks. Whistleblowers in football are in much greater danger than those in other businesses, such as the Panama Papers or LuxLeaks ”, said.
Also responsible for the Luanda Leaks process, Rui Pinto considers that the complaints involving Isabel dos Santos have changed his image before public opinion.
There was a change in the press regarding me: some journalists who always called me a pirate or hacker or computer spy now call me a whistleblower. Before, everyone treated Football Leaks as a silly war between football clubs. But, when Luanda Leaks appeared, everyone realized that there was much more than that. Even prosecutors ended up realizing that this was bigger than what they expected. This project ended up helping me to finally get out of prison ”, he says.
Rui Pinto, a self-taught computer expert, starts to be tried on Friday for 90 crimes: 68 of undue access, 14 crimes of violation of correspondence, six crimes of illegitimate access, computer sabotage to Sporting’s SAD and extortion , in the attempted form, the latter, a crime for which the lawyer Aníbal Pinto was also pronounced.
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