In a dramatic case of attempted fraud, FC Barcelona narrowly avoided losing £1 million after a scammer posed as Pini Zahavi, the agent responsible for Robert Lewandowski’s high-profile transfer to the club.
The incident, detailed in a Thursday report by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), followed an investigation involving Cadena Ser, Der Standard, and other partners. According to sources, a fraudulent payment request was halted by a Cypriot bank before it could be completed.
The scam began in July 2022, shortly after Barcelona signed Lewandowski from Bayern Munich for €45 million. Ten days later, the club received an email, seemingly from Zahavi, requesting a €1 million payment to a Cypriot bank account under the name of Michael Gerardus Hermanus Demon, supposedly a lawyer.
The email raised concerns due to its unfamiliar address and the fact that the payment was directed to a different recipient. Despite these warning signs, Barcelona initiated the transfer, which only came to light in spring 2023 when Cadena Ser’s radio show Que t’hi jugues obtained and shared the email with OCCRP and its investigative partners.
Four sources, including three with inside knowledge of the club, confirmed that Barcelona had moved forward with the transaction before the Bank of Cyprus flagged it as suspicious. A bank compliance officer intervened, blocking the payment over doubts regarding the account’s legitimacy.
Demon, the account holder, claimed his identity had been stolen, saying, “I don’t know anything about this and I don’t have a bank account in Cyprus. Unfortunately, I was a victim of ID fraud. My ID was stolen or lost sometime in 2022.”
Zahavi, who was unaware of the payment request, later confirmed the email was a forgery. He credited a Barcelona director for promptly reaching out to him for verification, which helped stop the fraudulent payment.
FC Barcelona acknowledged the incident but did not file a formal complaint with local police. A club spokesperson confirmed that no money was lost thanks to the bank’s intervention.
The Bank of Cyprus defended its verification process, asserting that it rigorously checks the authenticity of documents used to open accounts.
This incident follows a similar scam in 2018, when Italy’s Lazio paid €2 million to fraudsters posing as the Dutch club Feyenoord after the transfer of defender Stefan de Vrij.
“There is so much money involved in football, and a lot of people who want a small slice of the pie,” said Kieran Maguire, author of The Price of Football: Understanding Football Club Finance. “A small slice is still a lot of money.”
