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The joint raids carried out yesterday by the Public Ministry (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 processes under investigation of the authorities, among others. them Bad Ciao. This, remember, focuses on the alleged seduction of Benfica’s rivals, in the 2015/2016 season, that is, and as they say in the jargon, it is related to the suitcase game. What is already, after the reform of the corruption law 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 societies: Vitória de Setúbal, Desportivo das Aves, Marítimo and Paços de Ferreira. In yesterday’s searches, however, Santa Clara also entered the scene, and all, according to Sabbath magazine, for business around three Libyan players who were passing through the Azorean club.
The targets are Hamdou Elhouni, left-back, 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 League 2, after 25 and 21 years, respectively. They had done the preseason at Vitória de Setúbal as free players, after representing Al Ahly Tripoli, but they did not stay, contrary to what happened in the Azores. Ellafi was made official as the third Libyan winter reinforcement of Santa Clara in late January. With three goals scored in 15 games until the end of that season in League 2, Elhouni, on June 23, 2016, announces on his social networks that he is the reinforcement of Benfica and publishes a photo with Luís Filipe Vieira, ensuring that destiny was the main team, not B. But neither one nor the other. He was loaned in the following two seasons to Chaves and in the middle of the second he was loaned to Desportivo das Aves. At the end of this semester, he was definitely in the Avense club, which did not pay anything for the player, who ended up moving to the current club, Esperance from Tunisia, in January 2019, in exchange for 500 thousand euros. Elhouni was represented at that time, and continues to be today, by businessman Tiago Ribeiro, brother of Nuno Gomes, CEO of the NPlayers agency.
Al-Gadi, for his part, spent two seasons in Santa Clara, but played only six games and returned to Al Ahly Tripoli, while Ellafi, signed at 19, only played seven games and returned the following season, 2016/2017 , to Al Ahly Tripoli.
One of the objectives of yesterday’s searches went through the accounts of Benfica and Santa Clara to identify the securities involved in the business of these three Libyan players. In the case of Elhouni, the only one linked to Benfica, there will be a discrepancy of around 400 thousand euros.
According to the information obtained by A BOLA from the Azores, Santa Clara argues that the operation contributed 100,000 euros to the club’s coffers, while Benfica will have spent around half a million euros. There are also suspicions that the deal may have served as a counterpart either to Santa Clara, or later to Desportivo das Aves, a kind of over-the-counter financing sponsored by Benfica for these clubs.
The file related to Elhouni, by the way, ended up falling into the network of the authorities during the first raids carried out in the field of the Mala Ciao process, in June 2018, against Benfica, and that precisely targeted, among others, the multiple businesses among the incarnate. and Desportivo das Aves.
In the Azores, it is feared that the searches carried out yesterday by the three Libyan players are just the tip of the iceberg in an investigation that also includes suspicions that Santa Clara is being used for money laundering by SAD investors. The suspicions deepened with the PJ due to the lack of accountability of the SAD of Santa Clara before the partners, for example.
Other situations that the authorities will be aware of, as far as possible, refer to the sale, in May 2019, of Brazilian midfielder Kaio Pantaleão to the Russians from Krasnodar, for about € 3m. Business whose values will not be reflected. in the accounts of Santa Clara. More recently, the transfer of Zaidu to FC Porto will also have raised doubts, given that Santa Clara did not disclose the amounts received in connection with that operation, nor did FC Porto, which did not have to declare the transaction to the Securities Market Commission.
