Alright, we got a crypto mess so tangled, it makes a bad day at the office look like a walk in the park.
Picture this, six top-tier footballers, World Cup champs, ex-Barcelona legends, the whole nine yards, caught up in a $3.4 million crypto fraud scandal.
The kind of scandal that makes you wanna slam your coffee mug down and say, what the heck just happened?
Collectible trading cards
Barcelona’s Fifth District Court just kicked off a criminal probe into Shirtum Europa SLU, a crypto firm that promised the moon with NFTs tied to footballer image rights.
These digital collectibles, sold with the company’s own token, $SHI, were supposed to be gold mines. Instead?
They turned out to be worthless digital dust, leaving thousands of investors holding empty, worthless bags.
The players? They were the flashy faces pushing this failed scheme, lending their star power to build trust, trust that got shattered.
Rug pull?
Among the footballers named are “Papu” Gómez and Lucas Ocampos, both World Cup winners, plus former Barca stars Ivan Rakitić and Javier Saviola, along with Nico Pareja and Alberto Moreno.
The complaint, filed by a dozen victims, accuses the company and its promoters of cooking up a complex corporate structure across Spain and Andorra to dodge taxes and dodge responsibility.
Fancy, huh? But beneath the fancy papers, experts like economics professor Prosper Lamothe call it deliberately opaque and designed to confuse everyone but the masterminds.
And get this, these NFTs were sold for over $500 a pop, yet never made tradable or supported by a working platform.
Shirtum even claimed it got hacked twice in 2022, but no police reports ever showed up.
Meanwhile, investigators say the money was quietly funneled off for personal use, and the platform was abandoned like yesterday’s leftover pasta.
Chasing the ball
“Papu” Gómez, close pals with the alleged ringleader David Rozencwaig, reportedly recruited other players, calling himself a founder before wiping all Shirtum traces from social media.
It’s like a bad episode of your fav sitcom, where the prank goes too far, and everyone’s left cleaning up the mess.
Crypto’s relationship with Spanish football has been rocky. Since a 2021 ban on gambling ads left a sponsorship hole, crypto firms rushed in to fill the void. But many clubs ended up with unpaid fees and lawsuits instead of cash.
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