BarcelonaThe president of Barça, Joan Laporta, has received a new complaint for fraud aggravated by a case linked to the company CSSB Limited, a company that is being investigated for allegedly having kept money from several investors to whom it promised high returns, of which the Barcelona manager has always disagreed. But the documents to which the ARA has had access show that he signed, on at least one occasion, as its representative. The last case that has been made public dates back to 2017, and as it progressed The Confidentialthe complainant, ATO, invested $50,000 in CSSB Limited in return for an annual return of 6% which to this day has not been received, nor has the initial capital invested been returned to him.
It is the third case currently in court in which CSSB Limited and Joan Oliver, Barça’s general manager during Laporta’s first term, are being sued. In two of the complaints, Laporta appears as a defendant and, in a third, as a witness. In addition, there is an investigation by the Tax Agency into Core Store (from the same group as CSSB Limited) for possible tax irregularities. The court of inquiry number 21 of Barcelona has already summoned Laporta to testify as a defendant on January 16 following the ATO complaint
CSSB Limited, the manager of CF Reus Deportiu
CSSB Limited, based in Hong Kong, had as CEO Joan Oliver, and came to dispose of 57% of the property of CF Reus Deportiu before its disappearance. Laporta has always denied his involvement in all of this, but several documents included in the complaint filed by the ATO could prove otherwise. In fact, Laporta’s name and signature appear at the end of the contract for the $50,000 investment in CSSB Limited in exchange for a 6% annual return. Laporta signs as a representative of this society, as can be seen in the image below. In addition, in the complaint, the complainant states that he relied on the prestige of names such as Laporta or Oliver to carry out the investment. His lawyer’s brief literally says that “as a guarantee of investment success […] he expressed to him [l’assessora de Bankinter que hauria fet d’intermediària a la inversió] the identity of the people who were involved in the project, mentioning Joan Laporta, with whom he had a friendly relationship; Rafa Yuste [actual vicepresident econòmic del Barça] as management staff; Joan Oliver, as president of CF Reus Deportiu; and Xavier Sala-Martín [tresorer del Barça durant el primer mandat de Laporta]”.
Laporta as a claim
Another document attached to the complaint for aggravated fraud is a 12-page dossier that the Bankinter adviser who allegedly acted as an intermediary in the investment in CSSB Limited sent by email to the ATO to inform it of the project it had part company with the Beijing Institute Technology of Football Club (BIT), a sports entity of which it acquired 50% of the property in April 2016. On page 2 of this dossier (as can be seen in the bottom image) the names and faces of Joan Oliver, Joan Laporta, Xavier Sala-Martín and Rafa Yuste are shown as responsible for CSSB and it is explained that the aim of the project is to export to Chinese football the successful model that these people implemented at Barça between 2003 and 2010 (the duration of Laporta’s first term at the Barcelona club).
The investigation of the Tax Agency
Also attached to the complaint is the request for information (can be seen in the image below) that the ATO received about its investment in CSSB Limited by the Tax Agency, which has an open investigation into possible irregularities Fiscals of Core Store (a company in the same group as CSSB Limited). In this application you are asked for a letter of clarification about your investment in CSSB Limited, the current status of the investment, the explanation of how this investment was made, the people involved, the meetings held, the mails and cross communications, and the presentation of the supporting documentation for the previous points.
The cases of Albert Ramos and the winner of the Primitiva
This complaint for aggravated fraud of 50,000 dollars is added to the case reopened by the High Court of Barcelona last September 25th – brought forward exclusively by the ARA – which also has Laporta and CSSB Limited among the defendants for aggravated fraud. The complainants in this case are the winner of a Primitiva award and his family, who invested 4.7 million euros in loan contracts between 2016 and 2018 that were supposed to bring them an annual interest of ‘between 6 and 7%. In total, they would have had to collect 792,000 euros in interest. But they have only received 84,000. Thus, 708,000 are missing. In addition, in none of the five investments have they received any of the 4.7 million in total capital invested.
On the other hand, the Catalan tennis player Albert Ramos signed in 2016 – as this newspaper also reported exclusively – a loan contract of 100,000 dollars in favor of CSSB Limited. In return, the tennis player was to receive remuneration with 6% annual interest that would be settled quarterly and the return of the initial capital when the contract ended three years later, in 2019. But CSSB Limited only made the interest payments for four quarters. The total amount was around $6,000. Since then, the tennis player has not paid anything for this concept nor has he recovered the initial capital. In this case that Oliver is investigating, Laporta testified last July. In all the alleged scams mentioned, as explained in the complaints, the same Bankinter employee acted as an intermediary.
