La Liga giants Barcelona were momentarily scammed out of a million euro payment, when signing Robert Lewandowski from Bayern Munich.
That’s according to Cadena SER, who have on Thursday provided an insight into the situation.
Barca, of course, secured the signing of veteran frontman Lewandowski in a big-money deal from the aforementioned Bayern back in the summer of 2022.
The operation was overseen by super agent Pini Zahavi, who played a key role in pushing the transfer over the line.
It was an individual attempting to impersonate Zahavi, though, who came close to scamming the Camp Nou brass out of €1 million.
In fact, the Blaugrana went as far as to forward the payment, which was later blocked.
As revealed by the aforementioned SER, late in July of 2022, a number of leading figures in the Barcelona boardroom were contacted through an email address bearing the name of Pini Zahavi.
The email in question centered on a commission owed to the agent as part of Lewandowski’s transfer, amounting to €1 million:
‘In the email, sent on July 29, 2022, the Zahavi impostor provided all the details for the transfer: the figure of 1 million euros, the IBAN number of the current account (it ended in 1850), the SWIFT code ( necessary for international transfers) and the full name of the “Lawyer”: Michael Gerardus Hermanus Demon.’
The payment, in the end, was blocked en route to the scammer’s bank account, saving Barcelona from what would have been an embarrassing mishap.
Conor Laird – GSFN
