BRUSSELS: Belgian judicial authorities hope to be allowed access to documents of the Portuguese hacker Rui Pinto who is currently under house arrest in Budapest after admitting to be the man behind the Football Leaks revelations writes KEIR RADNEDGE.

Pinto was arrested on January 16 in Hungary on a European arrest warrant and has said he will oppose an extradition application.

Media sources in Belgium have reported that it was directly as a result of information release though European news outlets that police undertook a series of raids and arrests in November in an investigation into allegations of fraud and money laundering concerning the Royal Excel Mouscron club.

At the heart of this investigation is Pini Zahavi, the so-called super-agent who negotiated – among many other high-level transfers – Neymar’s move from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain in 2017.

The Swiss and French authorities are also understood to be interested in either gaining access to Pinto’s documentation or obtaining his co-operation in return for a possible plea-bargain deal.

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