Evidence linking Brazil’s biggest organized crime network and Portuguese football highlights how sports can serve as a vehicle for illicit activities, including money laundering.

On November 17, the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) announced the initiation of an internal investigation into allegations of money laundering involving the First Capital Command (Primeiro Comando da Capital – PCC), a notorious Brazilian crime syndicate. The probe follows claims by the Portuguese newspaper Público that the PCC exploited football clubs in Portugal to launder illicit profits from drug trafficking and other criminal enterprises.

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The journalistic report indicates that the PCC’s activities in Portugal may have involved acquiring stakes in small-to-mid-sized football clubs, where financial transactions tied to player transfers and sponsorships could be easily manipulated due to weak oversight. The federation’s investigation remains in its early stages.

InSight Crime Analysis

The PCC’s investment in Portuguese third-division football clubs highlights the sport’s susceptibility to money laundering, driven by the combination of minimal oversight, subjective valuations, and the ability to move significant capital through smaller, less scrutinized teams.

The purchase and investment by the PCC in Portuguese third-division clubs is not a coincidence. According to Ricardo Gil Ibarne, an accountant and former anti-money laundering official from Uruguay, third-division clubs in Europe enable the movement of more significant capital with less control than in Latin America’s lower divisions, where markets tend to be governed by historical and social factors rather than purely commercial ones.

“A third-division club allows for going unnoticed amid the diversity of investors in Europe and moves much more money than lower divisions in Latin America, where the market is regulated by a commercial perspective rather than one based on the history of the clubs,” he told InSight Crime.

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Roberto Uchôa, a Brazilian police officer, said the smaller size of the clubs plays an important role. “The purchase of smaller clubs, which may evade the scrutiny of authorities, offers the PCC an opportunity to disguise profits from drug trafficking and other illicit activities,” Uchôa told InSight Crime.

The football business has a series of characteristics that make it attractive for money laundering. “It’s an easy market to penetrate because it has few barriers. The operations are complicated; a transfer may go through three or four corporations, perhaps all located in tax havens, and it’s very difficult to trace,” Gil Ibarne told InSight Crime.

Another significant challenge lies in the football market’s subjective pricing. A player’s value can vary widely, allowing for over-invoicing or edited prices to justify suspicious financial transactions.

According to Uchôa, the combination of large amounts of money changing hands, opaque transactions, and limited regulatory oversight make the sport vulnerable.

Featured Image: The Nacional do Jamor stadium during the celebration of a sporting event. Credit: Instituto Portugués do Disporto e Juventude.

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