Saturday, October 19, 2024, 17:02
Barcelona president Joan Laporta has been charged with alleged fraud for the second time in two weeks. The Court of Instruction number 21 of Barcelona has accepted for processing a complaint filed against Laporta and his former partner Joan Oliver, accused of not returning 50,000 euros to a private investor. Laporta and Oliver were also recently charged by another Barcelona magistrate for, allegedly, not having returned an investment of 4.7 million euros to another investor.
The complainant demands that Laporta and his former partner return the funds he contributed (50,000 euros) to a company controlled by the Barça president under the promise that he would obtain an annual return of 6%. Laporta defends that he invested money in Reus, a club that ended up disqualified from the Second Division due to non-payments and that went into bankruptcy, and in a Hong Kong company that was going to build a club in China and open a football school in Asia, similar to La Masia, to train players.
At least between 2016 and 2018 Laporta had a company with Joan Oliver, through which they invested private capital from various investors. A third complaint filed by another affected person weighs against Laporta, for the same facts. Following the complaint accepted for processing by Court number 21 of Barcelona, Laporta will have to testify as a defendant on January 16.
According to El Confidencial, the money invested was delivered through the manager Solé, which guaranteed the complainant the possibility of recovering the investment and even rescuing the product in a short period of time, influencing the attractiveness of the investment and the multitude of people interested in the product, granting them a preferential option.
