Not even they are saved. Brazilian soccer players gave up to more than a million dollars to Xland , a cryptocurrency company that claims to have been affected ‘by the fall of FTX’.
An alleged million-dollar scam in cryptocurrencies torments the Brazilian soccer players Gustavo Scarpa, Mayke and Willian Bigode, and has been attracting the attention of the press in Brazil for several days .
“I’ve always seen stupid people fall into pyramid schemes, scams, things like that. And seeing myself in a situation like this, for me, is horrible,” says Scarpa, a Nottingham Forest player from England and declared the best player of the Brasileirao-2022, in a WhatsApp audio broadcast by the Fantástico program, from the Globo network.
they fell into the trap
The midfielder and Mayke, 30, filed complaints last November of an alleged scam by the Brazilian company Xland , in which they invested a large part of their assets with the promise of receiving returns of up to 5% per month, according to they reported to the civil police.
The footballers, who then shared at Palmeiras de Sao Paulo, went to the authorities after claiming their money in vain.
Scarpa claims the equivalent of 1.2 million dollars at the current exchange rate, while Mayke, one of the leaders of the São Paulo team, around 762,000 dollars, according to the police statement.
The Seleção and Palmeiras goalkeeper, Weverton, would also have been harmed, although the goalkeeper has not commented, according to the outlet.
“There are indications that there was a crime of fraud,” Glaucius Vinicius Silva, a civil police delegate, told Fantástico.
A chain of scams
Scarpa and Mayke claim to have invested in Xland on the recommendation of their former Palmeiran teammate Willian Bigode, currently at Fluminense in Rio de Janeiro.
But he assures that he is also a victim of Xland , which caused him a loss of about 3.3 million dollars between investment and returns.
“I am not a scammer, I did not take anyone’s money. I am a victim because until today I did not receive my resources,” he said in a video posted Monday on Instagram.
Brasilia-based Xland declares itself a victim of the late-2022 collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX , denies Ponzi schemes, and claims it will repay investors.