Six players, including World Cup champion Papu Gómez, involved in a $3.40 million cryptocurrency scam case
Powered by ChatGPTChainCatcher reports that, according to Decrypt, the Barcelona District 5 Court is investigating a cryptocurrency fraud case involving professional football players. The company involved, Shirtum, is accused of defrauding investors of at least 3.40 million USD through an NFT project endorsed by star players. Six players implicated include World Cup champion Papu Gómez and Lucas Ocampos, former Barcelona players Ivan Rakitić and Javier Saviola, as well as Nico Pareja and Alberto Moreno.
Prosecutors' documents reveal that this Spanish-Argentinian joint venture avoided taxes through a complex corporate structure, and the NFTs representing players' image rights sold by the company never enabled any trading functionality. After the players participated as "founders" to promote the project, related social media evidence was systematically deleted. In March 2022, the company claimed to have suffered a hacker attack but did not file a police report, and the platform quietly shut down thereafter.