Two prominent Brazilian footballers have accused a fellow professional of luring them into a cryptocurrency scam, and have filed a lawsuit against the company he runs.
Per reports from Suno, Lance, and ESPN Brasil, Mayke of Palmeiras in São Paulo and Nottingham Forest’s Gustavo Scarpa have taken legal action against the firm owned by Willian Bigode, who is currently playing for Fluminense in Brazil’s top division.
Mayke and Scarpa claim they invested more than $2 million into “crypto” through the “consultancy” and “financial planning” firm, WLJC, which was recommended to them by Bigode in May of last year. They allege to have been promised gains of 3.5-5% each month.
Allegedly, however, these returns never came to fruition and their money was not returned when they attempted to withdraw it. The suit seeks to bring Bigode to court and recover their funds.
Bigode’s Team: He is Also a Victim
The outlets noted that WLJC had suggested that Mayke and Scarpa invest their funds in a platform called Xland Holding. In October 2022, though, Xland was determined by the Brazilian state of Acre’s Public Ministry to be a potential Ponzi scheme.
In response, Bigode’s legal team has argued that their client did not act with malicious intent, and that he himself has lost approximately $3.4 million in the same venture. The team stated that Bigode had only recommended the investment to the other two players after he had been introduced to it by people he trusted.
“WLJC is not a brokerage. [It does not] have the power to make investments on behalf of its clients, as it acts exclusively in the field of financial planning.”
This situation follows on from the bankruptcy declaration of Indeal, a Brazilian firm thought to have been behind a crypto pyramid scheme of approximately $193 million.
