Rui Pinto, the 37-year-old hacker known for the Football Leaks, has been acquitted of all charges in a Portuguese court on Wednesday. The ruling came after the court deemed the allegations against him as “invalid” due to a prior conviction related to similar offenses.
Pinto faced trial since January 2025 on 241 counts of unlawfully accessing email accounts belonging to various Portuguese sports institutions, including Benfica, as well as law firms and the tax authority. He had previously been sentenced to a four-year suspended prison term in September 2023 for cybercrimes and extortion.
The court highlighted that the prosecution infringed upon Pinto's rights, referring to the treatment he received as “procedural violence.” Notably, Pinto has served as both a defendant and a protected witness in Portugal, cooperating with investigations across Europe, including in France.
Since 2015, he has published millions of documents that exposed high-profile figures in football, including revealing Lionel Messi and Neymar's salaries, and bringing attention to a lawsuit against Cristiano Ronaldo that was dismissed in the United States. Pinto was arrested in January 2019 and has also been involved in other significant leaks, such as the “Luanda Leaks” investigation.