Rui Pinto

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Rui Pinto (* 1988 or 1989 in Vila Nova de Gaia ) is a Portuguese whistleblower .

Life

Pinto comes from the city of Vila Nova de Gaia , according to his own statements he learned to read and write by watching football before he even went to school. His father worked as a shoe designer and his mother died of cancer when Pinto was eleven years old. He was "football fan since childhood," said Pinto in an interview with the mirror . After graduating from school, he began studying history, but dropped out. During the course of his studies, he spent a semester abroad in Budapest  .

Under the cover name "John", Pinto leaked more than 70 million documents to the Spiegel , some of which had been classified as "strictly confidential". These included contracts, sponsorship agreements, internal reports and communications from football associations, clubs and individuals in the football world. Pinto, who launched the Football Leaks website in the fall of 2015 , was referred to by Spiegel as "the man behind Football Leaks", but said he was not the only person who had obtained such documents. As a reason for his actions, he stated that he wanted to expose “as many grievances as possible”. He did not say how he got the data.

In November 2018 he was interviewed for the first time in Paris by officials of the French criminal prosecution authority for economic and financial offenses ( Parquet National Financier ) as part of an investigation into football clubs and players and also negotiated the possibility of joining a French witness protection program . On the evening of January 16, 2019, Pinto was arrested in Budapest after the Portuguese public prosecutor applied for a European arrest warrant. Pinto said he had received death threats since the fall of 2018. On March 5, 2019, a court in Budapest ordered the Portuguese's extradition to his home country. He is accused by the Portuguese judiciary of trying to blackmail the company Doyen in autumn 2015 and he is accused of two cases of cybercrime . On March 21, 2019, Pinto was delivered from Hungary to Portugal. Pinto received public support from the socialist MEP Ana Gomes and the French Antoine Deltour, who became known as part of the revelations of controversial tax agreements in Luxembourg . They emphasized the public interest in Pinto's work, which should not be criminalized. In September 2019, the General Public Prosecutor's Office in Lisbon brought charges against Rui Pinto, accusing him of unlawfully breaking into the computer networks of the public prosecutor's office, football clubs and associations, lawyers and player advisory companies. In December 2019, Pinto doubted that a fair trial awaited him, expecting the case to go to the European Court of Human Rights. In January 2020, the Portuguese judiciary announced the opening of a case against Pinto without giving a date for the start of the process. The judge in charge said he was not a whistleblower because Pinto “did not act in good faith”. The judge refused to release him on bail.

In January 2020, Pinto announced through his lawyer that he was also responsible for the publications about the corruption network around Isabel dos Santos , which the press referred to as Luanda Leaks , in the same month . In April 2020 he was released from custody and placed under house arrest after he decided to cooperate with the judiciary.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ NDR: "John" is threatened with trial: Whistleblower or criminal? Retrieved February 6, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b c d "The soccer mafia is everywhere" . In: Der Spiegel . No. 6/2. 2. 2019, 2. February 2019, p. 90-95 .
  3. ↑ Rafael Buschmann, Yann Philippin and Michael Wulzinger spoke to Rui Pinto: “I am receiving death threats” . In: Tages-Anzeiger . January 2, 2019, ISSN  1422-9994 ( tagesanzeiger.ch [accessed on February 6, 2019]).
  4. ↑ tagesschau.de: Football Leaks: Is informant "John" a hacker? Retrieved February 6, 2019 .
  5. ^ NDR: Football Leaks - Greed, Lies and Secret Deals. Retrieved February 6, 2019 .
  6. ↑ a b c Rafael Buschmann, Nicola Naber, Christoph Winterbach, Michael Wulzinger: Ins land of enemies . In: Der Spiegel . tape 11/2019 , March 9, 2019, p. 94, 95 .
  7. ↑ Joachim Schultheis: Unmasked whistleblower Rui Pinto fears for his life. February 1, 2019, accessed February 6, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Rui Pinto delivered to Portugal. In: Der Tagesspiegel. Retrieved March 22, 2019 .
  9. ^ NDR: Football Leaks: Rui Pinto's lawyers announce lawsuit. Retrieved April 30, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Michael Wulzinger, Nicola Naber, Rafael Buschmann: Football Leaks: Massive allegations against Rui Pinto . In: Spiegel Online . September 21, 2019 ( spiegel.de [accessed November 8, 2019]).
  11. ↑ Rafael Buschmann, Christoph Winterbach: "The same shit" . In: Der Spiegel . tape 52 . Spiegel-Verlag Rudolf Augstein GmbH & Co. KG, December 21, 2019, p. 92-95 .
  12. ↑ Football Leaks revealer Pinto comes to court - derStandard.de. In: The Standard. Retrieved January 25, 2020 .
  13. ↑ Rafael Buschmann: From Football Leaks to Luanda Leaks - Pinto's voice. In: Der Spiegel. spiegel.de, January 27, 2020, accessed on January 27, 2020 .
  14. ↑ Football Leaks revealer Pinto released from prison! In: krone.at. April 9, 2020, accessed April 9, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Pinto, Rui
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Portuguese whistleblower
DATE OF BIRTH 20th century
PLACE OF BIRTH Vila Nova de Gaia