On Thursday, four Africans were detained in the Leningrad region, suspected of fraudulently defrauding a European football club. Police officers, together with the St. Petersburg FSB Department, uncovered a scheme through which the fraudsters forced the Italian football club Sampdoria to transfer € 800,000 to them.
According to the investigation, four Africans (one of them is from Burkina Faso, the other three are citizens of Nigeria) learned that the Italian football club Sampdoria is interested in a professional Danish player from the Norshellan club. In early 2021, Africans, with the help of an acquaintance, obtained a fake passport with an assumed name.
According to the Resonance Center for Investigative Journalism, the attackers indicated the abbreviation FC, which stands for “football club”, in the “name” column in the fake passport. Then the attackers opened an account for this passport in a St. Petersburg bank, the name of which the police did not disclose. After that, they forged the accompanying documents, indicating in the details not the account of the Danes, but the one that they opened. The documents were sent to Italy.
How enterprising Africans managed to send documents on behalf of Danish footballers, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs does not specify. It is also not reported how exactly they convinced the Italians that they represent the Danes quite legally. But, according to media reports, they also had an accomplice in Europe.
According to the results of this correspondence, the investigation believes that the Italian side, as part of the payment for the transfer of the Danish footballer, transferred a large amount of money to the specified account.
“As a result of this fraud, the Italian club’s money in the amount of € 800 thousand, intended to pay for the transfer of a football player, came into the possession of the attackers and were stolen by them,” said Irina Volk, an official spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Who became the applicant – neither the police nor the FSB did not disclose. A criminal case was opened under Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fraud on an especially large scale). The maximum punishment for this crime can be imprisonment for up to 10 years.
Fraudsters were found in the Leningrad region, in the city of Murino. According to the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, during the arrest, one of the suspects tried to escape, clinging to the edge of the balcony.
The apartment in which the suspects were detained is located on the 17th floor, so the arrest of the man was also a salvation for him – he did not have time to break down.
As specified in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, during the search, the suspects seized items that have evidentiary value for the criminal case, including seals, stamps, passports, holograms and electronic media.
However, before the arrest, the suspects, the security officials believe, had already spent part of the funds received from the Italians. For the remaining 57 million rubles. seized. All four defendants were sent into custody.
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