Author: Amrit Santlani
The Spanish police have uncovered a major scam involving three gangs who were extorting money from Brazilian families by making false promises to turn their children into professional soccer players. According to a BBC report, the Spanish police have arrested three separate groups working together to con Brazilian families.
The gangs allegedly made false promises to people about how they would help turn the children brought from Brazil into elite soccer players. Instead, the scammers were simply making false claims to the children’s parents.
According to the Spanish police, the gangs demanded that parents pay tuition fees of around 5,000 euros (more than 25,000 reais), but this was only the initial amount and every month families were extorted to pay up to 1,700 euros per player.
The same report states that around 70 Brazilian families were deceived by the coup plotters, and a total of 11 arrests were made.
The scammers had promised the families that their children would be taken care of and that their money would be spent on covering expenses such as tuition, housing and paperwork for residence permits in Granada, Spain.
However, the reality is that the children were forced to live in houses with poor conditions and were not even given enough food, and none of the children managed to obtain legal residence in Spain, according to a police statement.
The Brazilian players whose families were scammed were mostly between the ages of 16 and 23.
The three gangs identified operate independently, but share responsibilities between the groups. Some gang members were responsible for recruiting children, and their targets were usually wealthy families. Another group focused on registering children with false documents to obtain visas and the third gang managed the overall strategy.
One of the children filed a complaint with the police, after which the Spanish authorities were able to uncover the scam.