Crime
How Ronaldo let travel agent scam him out of N140m in travel expenses to Africa, others
Man-U striker Cristiano Ronaldo has been scammed out of £250,000—about N140 million.
And it was all his fault.
He trusted his travel agent Maria Silvia with his credit cards and PIN.
It was revealed that Silva targeted Ronaldo for three years between February 2007 and July 2010.
Quoting Jornal de Noticias, Sun Sports reported that the 36-year-old Ronaldo submitted a statement to the police in 2011.
“The travel agent had to plug the hole in the firm’s accounts. She, therefore, began to bill those trips to Cristiano Ronaldo, who had an account at Geostar and for practical reasons, handed the agent a virtual credit card and pin code. It was a green route to taking money out,” the statement read.
According to the newspaper, the £245,770 scammed from Ronaldo corresponded with around 200 trips that he never made between Portugal to the US, Africa, and other European countries.
The travel agent, who currently works as a cleaner, was first interrogated in 2013 before her eventual sentence on Sunday, September 19, 2021.
Due to her wrongdoing, Silvia got a four-year suspended prison sentence on Sunday after being earlier convicted by a Porto criminal court in 2017, Sun Sports reported.
As part of her court deal, she would repay her firm a sum of £7,680 sparing her prison sentence.
The 53-year-old travel agent also scammed Ronaldo’s super-agent Jorge Mendes of £14,000 and Manchester United winger, Nani, of over £1,500.
