Pirmin Troger from Brixen and Manuel Batista from Mals (Photo: FB)
36-year-old Manuel Batista from Mals is the head of an international fraud network. The former badminton player is now in prison in Dubai.
by Artur Oberhofer
He himself said in a YouTube video years ago: “I have a great talent… I am a fisher of men.”
Even in his youth, Manuel Batista, 36, was someone who “acted big and liked to play the big Zampano,” says a childhood friend in a background conversation with the DAILY NEWSPAPER.
First, the extremely ambitious Bua from Vinschger – father Portuguese, mother from Mals – tried his luck in sport. As a badminton player, Manuel Batista made it into the Italian youth national team. The local newspapers at the time read that Manuel Batista was a “likeable, shy young man who pursued his goals with unceasing determination and discipline.” A former companion of Batista says she has never seen a young athlete “who trained as hard as Manuel.”
Manuel Batista took part in international tournaments until 2011, but only attracted attention there because his announcements and career plans were much more ambitious than his sporting abilities.
Manuel Batista owes the only Italian championship title he was able to win to Pope John Paul II. Because the Pope died on April 2, 2005, on a Saturday, the finals that were scheduled for the following day were canceled.
That’s why all finalists, including Manuel Batista, were awarded the title of Italian champion without having to play in the final.
In 2015, Manuel Batista played his last badminton tournament.
Even during his time as an athlete, the Vinschger native stood out because he always talked about business. “He was,” says one of Batista’s former supervisors, “a mega-ploderer.” He always boasted that he didn’t have to work but still earned a lot of money.
In any case, Manuel Batista made his way.
If not as a badminton player, the ambitious Vinschger has at least made it into the Champions League of crooks as a cheater. On the night of December 1st and 2nd this year, Manuel Batista was locked up behind bars in Dubai. Not for the first time.
Together with another South Tyrolean “entrepreneur”, Pirmin Troger from Eisacktal, Manuel Batista is considered to be the mastermind of a fraud network that dealt in cryptocurrencies and defrauded tens of thousands of investors of millions of euros and dollars.
Specifically, it’s about the EXW fraud network, whose mastermind is said to be Manuel Batista. Several European investigative authorities are investigating the Vinschger, including the Vienna Economic and Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (WKStA), which is now likely to demand Manuel Batista’s extradition.
Manuel Batista with a dashing accompaniment (Photo: FB)
The background: In 2024, a Klagenfurt court sentenced five people to prison sentences of several years in one of the largest fraud trials in Austria, including the two South Tyroleans Manuel Batista and Pirmin Troger.
The charge was for forming a criminal organization for the purpose of serious commercial fraud, money laundering and chain and pyramid games.
Pirmin Troger (Photo: YouTube)
The cryptocurrency fraud uncovered by Austrian investigators involved damages of more than 20 million euros. Batista & Co. launched a sophisticated MLM crypto Ponzi scheme called EXW-Wallet in 2019. The at least 40,000 investors – including numerous South Tyroleans – were promised incredible returns of 0.1 to 0.32 percent – per day!
That would be an annual return of over 220 percent.
The scheme collapsed in 2020 but was relaunched by Manuel Batisti & Co. and renamed Exchange World.
Instead of satisfying the investors and paying them the promised returns, Manuel Batista and his accomplices squandered the millions. As videos show, they treated themselves to luxury cars and private jets. They threw lavish parties in elite clubs in Dubai and decorated their luxury homes with opulent items. One of the villas used by Manuel Batista & Co. was even equipped with a shark tank. And all the cash was stashed in shoeboxes.
In the Klagenfurt trial, which lasted a whole year, Pirmin Troger and another defendant confessed and were sentenced to five years in prison. Manuel Batista, on the other hand, went into hiding.
Manuel Batista has not appeared in Mals since then.
The former badminton player also conned several people out of their money in the main town of Vinschger.
The Batista family is very respected in Mals. The father, who worked in Switzerland and is now retired, is described as extremely hardworking. The mother too.
It is said that Manuel Batista had many talents. The young man speaks six languages fluently.
In Denmark, where Manuel Batista lived for a while (and also stole money from numerous people there), he learned the language in a very short time.
A painter who knows Manuel Batista very well reports: “Manuel has always had a passion for quick money; he never actually worked, he always set very high goals for himself and emulated those people who had a lot of money – regardless of whether these people earned their fortune legally or in a crooked way.”
Before he discovered cryptocurrencies as a scam, Manuel Batista – so the story goes in Vinschgau – sold coffee and Chinese anti-wrinkle ointments.
If he had money, Manuel Batista spent it. He also organized swank parties in Vinschgau. “He acted as if he had a license to print money,” says a good acquaintance of the now remand prisoner. This carefree demeanor impressed many people in the valley – and they trusted Manuel Batista with their money.
At some point, after the verdict in Klagenfurt, Manuel Batista was no longer seen in his home valley.
People in Vinschgau knew that Manuel Batista was in Dubai. The family members – mother, brother and grandmother – visited Batista several times in the United Arab Emirates. After their return, mother and grandmother told Batista that Manuel had not gone into hiding and that he did not have to hide. They said he could move freely in Dubai and work normally.
As we now know, that was not true.
Before his last arrest almost three weeks ago, Manuel Batista had been arrested several times in Dubai – and not just because of fraud allegations.
In December 2024, a woman reported Manuel Batista for assault. Another time the man from Vinschger was put in jail because he had debts to “business partners”. After the debts were paid, Manuel Batista was always released quickly.
But this time the authorities in Dubai rejected the Italian citizen’s offer of bail.
So far, Manuel Batista has been able to enjoy his underground life to the fullest.
That’s probably over now. Especially if he is extradited to Austria.
Photo(s): © 123RF.com and/or/with © Archive Die Neue Südtiroler Tageszeitung GmbH (unless there is a reference)
