The president of FC Barcelona, Joan Laporta, denied this Monday before the judge his participation in an alleged scam of 4.7 million euros through the company CSSB Limited, based in Hong Kong. In his appearance as an investigator at the City of Justice of Barcelona, Laporta has distanced himself from the company’s activities and has placed responsibility on the man who was manager of that company and also general director of Barça during his first term as president. , Joan Oliver. The Barça president has assured that he was included in the complaint not because of his responsibilities in society, but because of his public “notoriety.”
In 2014, a family that had been awarded a prize from the Primitiva lottery decided to invest 2.4 million euros in the CSSB, which offered a return of 6%. The family maintains that the fact that Laporta appeared in the company’s advertising brochures gave them guarantees of solvency that were later defrauded. In his statement before the investigating court number 6 of Barcelona, Laporta distanced himself from the management of the company and indicated that he was a joint administrator of Core Store, a company that owned 57% of CSSB.
The Hong Kong company, which also managed Reus Deportivo, intended to invest in a second division Chinese team with the expectation that it would achieve promotion, something that ultimately did not happen. Laporta has assured that it was a failed project and has placed the responsibility on the shoulders of Oliver, who directly managed both companies and was the owner of the account where the family awarded the prize deposited the 2.4 million: “If the business has gone wrong, the responsibility lies with its managers,” he said, according to judicial sources present in the statement, behind closed doors.
Laporta has not made any statements about the case upon leaving the court, although he has taken the opportunity to denounce the supposedly not awarded penalty against the Barça player Koundé in the match against Getafe: “It is a shame.” Before, in the courtroom, he insisted on disassociating himself from the specific operation and, in general, from the functioning of CSSB. The president has maintained, according to the same sources, that he was unaware of the links between Core Store – the company of which he was joint administrator until 2019 – and the Hong Kong-based company.
Joan Comas, lawyer for the complaining family, has requested that new tests be carried out: “We have requested everything that they tell us that they do not know or do not remember through banks, because a rogatory commission to China is unfeasible.” Laporta’s lawyer, Jordi Pujante, recalled that the complaint was already filed on one occasion, although the truth is that the Barcelona Court forced the judge to reopen it and carry out a series of procedures before deciding what to do.
In addition to Laporta, two more people have declared this Monday as being investigated for the same crime of fraud: the owner of the dealership where the family bought a luxury vehicle and his partner, a Bankinter advisor. Both have acknowledged that they advised the family to put the money in the hands of CSSB because it offered interesting returns and because, being sponsored by “popular people”, the investment was not going to be put at risk.
