Fake Lewandowski agent to steal from Barca €1 million.

Barcelona reportedly fell victim to a scam during the signing of Robert Lewandowski, after being tricked into paying someone who pretended to be his agent.

In 2022, Barcelona signed Lewandowski from Bayern Munich for £42.5 million. The club had been eager to bring him on board that summer after the forward expressed his desire to leave Bayern, following nine successful seasons there. Despite Barcelona’s financial challenges, landing Lewandowski, who had scored 50 goals in 46 matches the previous season, was a huge win for the team.

However, according to the Spanish outlet Cadena SER, things took a strange turn during the transfer process. The club reportedly received an email they believed was from Lewandowski’s agent, Pini Zahavi, instructing them to pay a €1 million (£830,000) agent’s commission. The email then requested two additional payments of €250,000 (£208,000) each.

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Oddly, instead of directing the payment to Zahavi, the email asked for the money to be sent to a lawyer’s bank account. Barcelona reportedly followed these instructions and sent the money to a Bank of Cyprus account. However, the payment was flagged as suspicious since the account had only been recently opened, and the funds were frozen.

The situation escalated when another email was sent, pressuring Barcelona to contact the bank and unfreeze the payment or face being reported to FIFA. Luckily, the bank contacted the club first, and it was discovered that the account was part of a scam. The account was closed, and Barcelona was able to recover the funds.

Zahavi later confirmed to Cadena SER that Barcelona had reached out to him a month after the transfer, asking if he had received the payment. To their surprise, Zahavi revealed he had never heard of the lawyer or the email, and the payment instructions did not come from him.

Although Barcelona insists that their internal processes for approving transfers were followed correctly, this incident has raised new questions about the club’s financial management during that time. In 2022, Barcelona’s debt had ballooned to £1.14 billion, leading the club to use a series of ‘economic levers’ to generate funds for key signings, including Lewandowski.