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The joint searches carried out yesterday by the Public Prosecutor (MP), the Judicial Police (PJ) and the Tax Authority (AT) focus on suspicions of sports corruption, tax fraud and money laundering, among others, and go through several trials under investigation by the authorities, among others. their Mala Ciao. This, we remember, focuses on the alleged invasion of the opponents of the rivals of Benfica, in the 2015/2016 season, that is, and as they say in the jargon, it is linked to the game of the suitcase. Which is already, after the amendment to the law on corruption in sports, in 2017, a crime of corruption. It also investigates the use of players loaned by Benfica for this purpose, focusing, in addition to the Clube da Luz SAD, on four other sports clubs: Vitória de Setúbal, Desportivo das Aves, Marítimo and Paços de Ferreira. In yesterday’s research, however, Santa Clara also entered the scene, and all, according to the Sabbath magazine, due to the business around three Libyan players who passed for the Azores club.
The targets are Hamdou Elhouni, left winger, Mohamed Al-Gadi, defensive midfielder and Muaid Ellafi, attacking midfielder. The first arrived in Ponta Delgada in December 2015, to complete the period of experience in the team that was then in Liga 2, then respectively 25 and 21 years. They had made the pre-season at Vitória de Setúbal as free, after representing Al Ahly Tripoli, but they did not stay, contrary to what happened in the Azores. Ellafi was made official as Santa Clara’s third Libyan winter reinforcement in late January. With three goals scored in 15 games until the end of that season in Liga 2, Elhouni, on June 23, 2016, announces on his social networks that he is Benfica’s reinforcement and posts a photo alongside Luís Filipe Vieira, making sure the destination was the main team, not B. But neither one nor the other. It was loaned to Chaves in the next two seasons and was loaned to Desportivo das Aves midway through the second. At the end of this semester he was permanently in the Avense club, which paid nothing for the player, who ended up moving to the current club, Esperance Tunis, in January 2019, in exchange for 500 thousand euros. Elhouni was represented at that time, and still is today, by entrepreneur Tiago Ribeiro, brother of Nuno Gomes, CEO of the NPlayers agency.
Al-Gadi, for his part, spent two seasons at Santa Clara, but only played six games and returned to Al Ahly Tripoli, while Ellafi, signed at the age of 19, played only seven games and returned. the following season, 2016/2017, in Al Ahly Tripoli.
One of the objectives of yesterday’s research went through the Benfica and Santa Clara accounts to identify the values involved in the business of these three Libyan players. In the case of Elhouni, the only one linked to Benfica, there will be a gap of about 400 thousand euros.
According to information obtained by A BOLA from the Azores, Santa Clara claims that the operation brought 100,000 euros to the club’s coffers, while Benfica will have spent about half a million euros. There are also suspicions that the deal may have served as a counterpart for either Santa Clara, or later for Desportivo das Aves, a kind of Benfica-sponsored over-the-counter loan for these clubs.
The dossier relating to Elhouni, incidentally, ended up in the shirts of the authorities during the first searches carried out in the context of the Mala Ciao trial, in June 2018, in Benfica, and which aimed, in addition to others, at the many companies among the incarnate . and Desportivo das Aves.
In the Azores it is feared that the searches carried out yesterday because of the three Libyan players are just the tip of the indexberg of an investigation that also includes suspicions that Santa Clara is being used for money laundering by SAD investors. Suspicions have sharpened with the PJ due to the Santa Clara SAD’s lack of accountability to partners, for example.
Other situations that the authorities will become aware of, as far as it has been possible to ascertain, concern the sale, in May 2019, of the Brazilian midfielder Kaio Pantaleão to the Russians of Krasnodar, for about 3 € M. Business whose values will not be reflected in the accounts of Santa Clara. More recently, Zaidu’s transfer to FC Porto will also have raised questions, as Santa Clara has not disclosed the amounts received in connection with that transaction, nor FC Porto, which has not had to report the transaction to the Securities Market Commission. .
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