Luís Figo, former football player turned businessman, is suspected of tax evasion on an industrial scale.
A 2002-2005 ‘image rights’ contract between the former footballer and Galp Energia has become enmeshed in Operação Furacão (Operation Hurricane). The suspicious transaction was for €399,000.
The tax fraud investigation has been going on for over ten years and picked up Luís Figo’s company, Lunarstar Limited, which formerly managed the football player's image rights.
According to the detailed records of Operação Furacão, the transaction in 2003 was between Galp Energia and Lunarstar Limited which also was responsible for a contract for the use of Figo’s image rights by BPN in 2007.
The deal between Galp and Lunarstar Ltd, referred to in the records as 'a foreign company,' was flagged up alongside a long list of companies suspected of tax evasion.
Others caught up in this operation have paid up to avoid an embarrassing trial. The total estimated to have been lost to the treasury is €160 million, according to the latest report prepared by the State Prosecution department.
There have been 700 defendants in the operation so far, with more than 300 opting to pay up when it was discovered they had been involved in cheating the taxman in a cunningly designed scheme.
The ploy used involved the creation of front companies in Ireland and the United Kingdom that served only to issue invoices for goods - mostly non-existent and or low value goods - bought by Portuguese companies.
These bills were paid and the companies faked costs to redcue the paper profit on the transactions. The actual profits then were sent to the offshore bank accounts of other specially created companies controlled ultimately by the tax evaders.
The scheme was arranged by the 'do anything for a commission' Banco Espírito Santo and subsidiaries which charged 5% of the gross amount as a rather convenient handling fee.
Figo has long been suspected of being less than honest with his tax affairs, all too common in the crooked world of professional football controlled by Fifa which itself is rotten to the core.
The Portugal national team player and internationally recognised figure may soon be asked to pay up or go to court, if so he joins some good company among the elite of Portugal's business and sporting world.
