It was February 23, 2016 and two businessmen were planning to get around twenty tickets so that FC Barcelona fans could see the team with the trident made up of Leo Messi, Neymar y Luis Suárez in the first match of the knockout round of the Champions League. However, despite having paid a total of 26,000 euros to the former professional Portuguese basketball player Arnau Gomis i Martín, of Catalan origin, to obtain the tickets for the Emirates Stadium, the field of Arsenal, did not get the tickets, but some crude photocopies.
The Catalan club, then led by the Asturian Luis Enrique, had just won the Champions League in Berlin. And at the crossroads of the highest European competition, the team that the Frenchman had trained for almost two decades had touched him as a rival. Arsène Wengerwho had beaten the blaugrana in the previous seven games.
However, the followers culés could not see the Messi’s “prodigious” performanceas can now be read in the chronicles of that match, which despite the Blaugrana victory 0-2, with goals scored by the Argentine star, turned into a nightmare, since the ticket sales had been a scam.
Seven years later
Seven years later, the seller of the photocopies, the former professional basketball player Arnau Gomis i Martín, has recognized in the Provincial Court from Madrid the facts and has accepted a sentence of one year, nine months and one day in jail for a crime of fraud.
The defendant, according to the sentence, took advantage of “his fame and contacts” in the world of sports, since he had been a professional basketball player in Portugalamong other teams in the Benfica, to create a supposed platform for the sale of football tickets. And one of Arnau Gomis’ partners, who has not been convicted, informed two businessmen of the possibility of buying tickets.
They fell into the trap, because Arnau Gomis i Martín carried out his first deception, because “knowing that he lacked tickets”, in January 2016 he “falsely” stated that he had tickets for the League Classic in his possession, Barça-Real Madrid, which was to be held in Barcelona on April 2. Here, too, he emailed a ticket in PDF format “to give cover to his mendacious claim.” One of the scammed businessmen paid 4,800 euros on January 27, 2016 to a checking account of a company, whose administrator has not been found by the justice system.
He paid 26,000 euros
It was then that the convicted man offered another twenty tickets for the Barcelona-Arsenal CF football match. A businessman made a first transfer of 1,500 euros; and a second, in that same month of February, he delivered 26,000 euros to Gomis i Martín, “receiving some tickets that turned out to be mere photocopies with locators that did not correspond to the event for which they had been purchased“, completes the sentence, which concludes that the convicted person, at all times, knew of his impossibility to comply”, and despite this “he incorporated the entire amount received into his assets without taking any action aimed at obtaining authentic entries” .
The same sentence, to which El Periódico de España, from Prensa Ibérica, has had access, announces the suspension of the execution of the sentence for a period of two years. This decision It is conditioned to the payment of the civil responsibility of 32,300 euros. Gomis i Martín has agreed to compensate a businesswoman in the amount of 1,500 euros and a second businessman 30,800 euros plus interest.
The first payments of this civil liability, which have been divided, were scheduled for March 6, 2023 (3,300 euros); on March 20 (3,000 euros); on April 3 (3,000 euros); on April 17 (3,000); and June 15 (10,000 euros). July 12 is the last date for returns, so will have to return another 10,000 euros.
2023-06-26 11:47:17
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