Known as the hacker who created the “Football Leaks” platform, Rui Pinto will be tried in Portugal for 93 crimes of illegitimate access to information, computer sabotage, violation of correspondence and attempted extortion.
The Lisbon Criminal Investigation Court decided this Friday to put him on trial, despite having a mandate to file part of the 147 charges brought by prosecutors against him.
The platform’s founder will be tried for six crimes of illegitimate access, one of computer sabotage, 17 of violation of correspondence, 68 of improper access and one of attempted extortion.
Prosecutors believe that the accused used his “technical knowledge” and “appropriate equipment” to gain unauthorized access to third-party computers and e-mails. The crimes allegedly took place between early 2015 and January 2019.
In September 2015, Pinto created the website “Football Leaks”, which he fed with documents obtained through unauthorized access to computers of various entities in Portugal and other countries. Among the victims of the hacker would be, according to the prosecutors, Sporting, the Portuguese Football Federation and the Public Ministry itself.
The indictment also claims that the hacker accessed the computers of the directors of the investment fund Doyen Sports. With a false identity, he contacted a lawyer for the company to ask for between 500 thousand and 1 million euros to erase all the information he had in his possession.
Pinto, 31, was arrested in Hungary after Portugal issued a European detention order against them. The Hungarian government extradited him in March last year, when the hacker was preventively arrested by Portuguese authorities.
The accused leaked several documents that gave rise to scandals and some of them even provoked lawsuits for tax evasion.
One of the cases that had the most repercussion was the publication of details of an out-of-court settlement between model Kathryn Mayorga and striker Cristiano Ronaldo over an alleged case of sexual abuse.
