In update
The trial of the process Football Leaks arrives this Monday for the fourth session and, after explaining the access to the accounts of the Portuguese Football Federation and the PLMJ law firm, for example, Rui Pinto now explains how and why he accessed the accounts of e-mail of the Attorney General’s Office (PGR).
First, Rui Pinto’s main target was the Central Department of Investigation and Criminal Action (DCIAP), which he managed to get through the mailbox of Amadeu Guerra, director of this department. The idea, explained the alleged hacker, was “know who was the source of the DCIAP” who will have passed on information to Sábado magazine, after the publication of an article that revealed the identity of Rui Pinto. “Unfortunately, I never managed to get there,” he acknowledged.
Still in relation to the PGR, Rui Pinto explained that there was “a security flaw” here, since he managed, in a simple way, to have access to all the passwords two different departments. “Everyone who was connected to the PGR’s internal network was available to know these passwords“as there was a note in the internal email contact list with all the passwords.
This is the fourth session in which Rui Pinto sits in court to answer questions from the panel of judges. In the last three weeks, the alleged hacker has analyzed the accusation made by the Public Ministryexplaining practically all the points. In the first session, which took place three weeks ago, Rui Pinto revealed that he was working with Ukraine’s secret services, analyzing satellite and surveillance camera images, but spoke above all about the moments that gave rise to Football Leaks. Still, even assuming that he had access to the email accounts of several Sporting workers, Rui Pinto always denied saying who worked with him.
Rui Pinto says in court that he is helping Ukrainian secret services
Already in the second session, a week later, the main subject was the access to Doyen investment fund accounts and attempted extortion. And here, Rui Pinto explained that he did not make any initial access to the accounts, only knowing that this was happening. Regarding the extortion attempt, he acknowledged that “it was all childish” and that he “did not know what extortion was”.
Rui Pinto on the attempted extortion of Doyen: “I was not aware of what the word extortion meant”
Finally, last week, Rui Pinto denied being the main creator from the blog ‘Mercado de Benfica’ — site where the e-mails from Benfica. “The author worked on Football Leaks,” he explained.. Furthermore, the alleged hacker admitted that he had access to the mailboxes and contents of the folders of Inês Pinto da Costa, from the PLMJ law firm, whose information later gave rise to Luanda Leaks.
