Rui Pinto is the founder of the Football Leaks portal, know where is he now today
Find out more about him.
Rui Pinto, the person in charge of the Football Leaks portal that revealed private football transfer and contract information, escaped jail time.
Who is Rui Pinto founder of Football Leaks, net worth now today in 2023 and case verdict update
Earlier, he was found guilty of attempted extortion, unauthorized access to data, and breach of correspondence by a Portuguese court, which sentenced him to four years with a suspended prison term.
The 34-year-old Rui Pinto launched the website in 2015 and released millions of stolen papers over it. As opposed to being a hacker, he justified himself as a whistleblower. His website distributed private information to media organizations connected to the consortium of journalists known as the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC).
Ultimately, he was taken into custody in Hungary in January 2019, but he later got out of house detention and was put under witness protection. He went on trial in September 2020.
In spite of the fact that he was facing an intimidating 90 criminal charges, including computer fraud, attempted extortion, and privacy violations, Rui Pinto argued that his actions were justified by the need to expose football corruption. The court agreed with this claim after hearing it from his attorney, according to the decision made on Monday.
🚨🚨 The Portuguese computer hacker whose release of a huge cache of documents led directly to Manchester City being charged with 115 rule breaches by the Premier League has received a suspended prison sentence by a court in Lisbon.
In 2018, Rui Pinto, a 34-year-old Portuguese… pic.twitter.com/QxkzImQ72R
— Football Talk (@FootballTalkHQ) September 12, 2023
Since then, he has become the talk of the town, with many people trying to find out more about him. So, here’s what we know about him:
Who is Rui Pinto?
Rui Pinto is an infamous Portuguese activist, whistleblower, and founder of the Football Leaks website. He has been in the news because he received a four-year suspended sentence in Portugal.
His full name is Rui Pedro Gonçalves Pinto. He was born on 20 October 1988 in Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal. After finishing high school, he joined a study abroad program in Budapest in 2013, and in the fall of 2008, he started studying history at the University of Porto.
In the fall of 2008, after finishing high school, Rui Pinto enrolled at the University of Porto to study history. Subsequently, in 2013, he enrolled in a study abroad program in Budapest.
He is currently 34 years old.
His career
Rui Pinto was initially charged with stealing from the Caledonian Bank, which has its headquarters in the Cayman Islands. He later settled with the bank without going to court, citing his desire to reveal financial wrongdoing.
His journey continued as he dove into the realm of football financing and launched Football Leaks in 2015 to expose the shadowy core of the sector and spark international inquiries. His role went beyond the Luanda Leaks, which exposed Isabel dos Santos’s wealth buildup.
Following Pinto’s arrest in 2019, concerns regarding whistleblower protection arose, sparking a contentious trial with claims of improper investigation. Despite the difficulties with the law, Pinto received a European whistleblower prize in 2019 and was ultimately freed from house imprisonment in 2020.
Prosecutors alleged that Pinto sought between 500,000 to one million euros ($537,000-$1.07 million) from the head of Doyen Sports, Nelio Lucas but his net worth isn’t known.