Figo, Ronaldinho, and Vinicius implicated in a large-scale scam promoting cryptocurrencies
Fraud
The company Omegapro pocketed 3 billion euros with the promise of a 300% return in just 14 months for investing in cryptocurrencies
The match between Figo's friends and Ronaldinho's friends brought together in Dubai great former players from the main soccer clubs
Hundreds of victims of a global-scale cryptocurrency pyramid scheme will sue around twenty football players and former football players for promoting it, according to an investigation published by El Diario.
The company called Omegapro pocketed 3 billion euros with the promise of a 300% return in just 14 months for investing in cryptocurrencies. They achieved this through an aggressive marketing campaign in which high-level players participated.
The highlighted players
The soccer players who did advertising were Vinicius, Ronaldinho, Kaká, Luis Figo, Iker Casillas, Carles Puyol, Roberto Carlos, and Fernando Hierro, among others, according to the bulletin. Some participated in promotional events for this international scam, while others promoted it on social media.
Three of the main executives of the company have ended up in prison, although there are still two fugitives. Now, a lawyer representing the victims ensures that they will bring before the judge the soccer players and former professional soccer players who, for example, shared messages on social media talking about the project or participated in exhibition matches to promote it.
Regulators from several countries (including those from the Spanish state) had already warned that it was not a reliable company. The fraud took place during 2022, and the Spanish Securities Market Commission had already added Omegapro to its list of non-transparent financial businesses two years earlier, in 2020
The victims trusted due to the involvement of celebrities
The newspaper has interviewed about twenty victims of this global scam, half a dozen of them in Spain, as well as former employees of the pyramid scheme. All the defrauded individuals acknowledge that the company's major events, as well as the involvement of celebrities, led them to trust the project.
“How was it supposed to be a scam? If even the footballers were involved and the company's logo was projected on the skyscraper in Dubai!” wonders Dolores, one of the victims, who lost the 18,000 euros she had saved over the years working multiple precarious jobs.