Barcelona ‘victim of transfer fraud after transferring £830,000 to scammer pretending to be Lewandowski’s agent’
BARCELONA fell victim to a scam when completing Robert Lewandowski’s transfer.
The striker moved to the Nou Camp in the summer of 2022, joining from Bayern Munich.
Lewandowski has been in fine form this season and has helped Barcelona to the top of LaLiga, but his signing got the club into difficulty.
That is because a fraudster posing as his agent Pini Zahavi demanded a payment of £830,000, according to reports in Spain.
In late July 2022 several club directors and executives received an email requesting the payment as commission for the deal being completed.
Barcelona paid the amount into an account number at the Bank of Cyprus – but to an account under the name of Michael Gerardus Hermanus Demon.
The bank blocked the transfer as it was considered high risk, due to the fact there were no previous transactions on the account nor any valid documents to justify the payment.
The scammer continued to put pressure on Barcelona by posing as Zahavi, and threatened to report the club to Uefa and block Lewandowski’s registration.
They also wrote to the Bank of Cyprus in a bid to get the transaction approved but were denied again.
That meant Barcelona were able to recover the £830,000 and have since reported the scammer to police after receiving two more emails demanding around £210,000.
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Lewandowski, 36, has been a success at Barcelona with 71 goals in 106 games, including 12 this term.
He signed from Bayern in a deal worth £42.5million.