World Cup winner Papp Gomez and six other players implicated in $3.40 million crypto scam

On June 11, the Barcelona 5th District Court is investigating a cryptocurrency fraud case involving professional football players. The company involved, Shirtum, is accused of defrauding investors of at least $3.40 million through the NFT project of the Stars Platform, involving six players including World Cup champions Papu Gómez and Lucas Ocampos, former Barcelona players Ivan Rakitić and Javier Saviola, as well as Nico Pareja and Alberto Moreno.
Prosecutors' documents show that the West-Arab joint venture evaded taxes through the company's complex organizational structure, and the player image rights NFTs it sold were never transactional. After the players participated in the promotion as "founders", the relevant social media evidence was systematically deleted. In March 2022, the company claimed to have been hacked, but did not file a police report, and then the platform quietly shut down.