Multimillion-dollar racketeering attempts, threatening videos, pressures … The implications of the extortion denounced by footballer Paul Pogba begin to take shape with the deferral, this Saturday, of older brother Mathias Pogba and four men for their examination.
Between Tuesday and Wednesday, four men between the ages of 27 and 36, close to the Pogba brothers, were taken into custody at the headquarters of theCentral office for the fight against organized crime (Oclco). And Mathias Pogba, 32, went to the investigative service himself on Wednesday.
Upon completion of police custody, the five men were presented to an investigating judge this Saturday. Mathias Pogba, was indicted and remanded in custody, according to a source close to the investigation. “Let’s challenge this decision”, immediately reacted Mathias Pogba’s lawyer, Yassine Bouzrou, questioned on BFMTV, believing that his client “has not committed any crime”.
According to a judicial source, the other four suspects were also indicted and imprisoned in this case. The prosecution had asked for them to be placed in pre-trial detention.
Contradictions and lies
While in police custody, the five suspects claimed to be “victims of individuals whose names they refuse to name,” according to a source close to the investigation, but “contradict each other and lie,” this source said.
The role of Mathias Pogba is still not “entirely clear”, according to the source nearby. “The investigation is far from over,” he said.
In a press release released last week, Mathias Pogba said he was “completely unrelated to any extortion maneuver against his brother”.
And, in the first hours of his police custody, his lawyer, Me Yassine Bouzrou, had assured that his client “strongly contested any participation in the kidnapping and extortion acts with a weapon of which his brother Paul Pogba would have been the victim” .
While in police custody, Mathias Pogba admitted that he was at the initiative of the video having revealed to the public this story that shook the world of football two months before the World Cup in Qatar. In this enigmatic video, broadcast on August 27 on social networks, the eldest son promised “revelations” about his younger brother.
After its broadcast, Paul Pogba, a Juventus player, announced that he had filed a complaint with the Turin prosecutor’s office on July 16, denouncing an extortion between March and July 2022 for 13 million euros.
The Paris public prosecutor had opened a preliminary investigation, then a judicial investigation entrusted to two investigating magistrates on 2 September for, in particular, extortion with weapons, kidnapping or kidnapping in an organized gang and participation in a criminal association.
Pressures on the agent
According to The Parisian, Mathias Pogba is also suspected of lobbying his brother’s agent, lawyer Rafaela Pimenta. He would send her threatening messages, particularly for him to try to persuade Paul Pogba to pay the sum demanded by his blackmailers.
The agent filed a complaint for “extortion in an organized gang”, confirmed a judicial source. “The reported facts are taken into consideration in the ongoing judicial investigation”, explains this source.
Star of the French team, Paul Pogba said during his first hearing before investigators that he was trapped by childhood friends and two hooded men, armed with assault rifles, accusing him of not helping them financially. Of the 13 million euros declared, he says he paid 100,000 euros.
The 29-year-old midfielder, nicknamed the “Pickaxe”, later said he recognized older brother Mathias as a suspect. However, he had estimated, during another hearing, that Mathias was “under pressure” from people who wanted to extort money from him.
In this case, the name of the French football star Kylian Mbappé also appears, reluctantly. Paul Pogba explained to investigators that “his blackmailers wanted to discredit him by sending messages in which he would ask a marabout in his family circle to cast a spell” on the PSG striker. The Juventus player has denied these allegations.
Mathias Pogba is also a professional footballer, but with an unstable career with a succession of second or third tier clubs (thirteen teams in thirteen years).
His complicity with his twin Florentin, central defender passed in particular by Saint-Étienne, and his younger brother Paul was illustrated by the three brothers’ interpretation of “Pogbance”, a choreography broadcast on social media.
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