According to information from Parisian confirmed by Agence France-Presse (AFP), Mathias Pogba, older brother of the star footballer of the Blues Paul Pogba, admitted, Thursday, September 15, during his police custody in the investigation into the extortion of funds denounced by his brother, having initiated a video threatening him.
Five police custody – one on Tuesday and four on Wednesday, including that of Mathias Pogba – were ordered as part of a judicial investigation opened on September 2 in Paris for in particular “extortion with a weapon, kidnapping or kidnapping in an organized gang and participation in an association of criminals”.
This incredible affair, which is shaking the Blues and more broadly the world of football two months before the World Cup in Qatar, started with a complaint filed on July 16 with the Turin prosecutor’s office by Paul Pogba. The Juventus player denounced extortion attempts between March and July 2022 amounting to 13 million euros.
Trapped by childhood friends
But the facts only came to light with the publication on August 27 of an enigmatic video of Mathias Pogba, himself a 32-year-old professional footballer, who promised “revelations” on his brother. He presented himself to the police on Wednesday before being taken into custody. There, he admitted having been at the initiative of this video, according to a source close to the file quoted by The Parisian.
However, during a hearing by the investigators, Paul Pogba had estimated that Mathias was ” under pressure “ people wanting to extort money from him. “He’s a calm guy, unrecognizable on the video [qui a déclenché l’affaire] where he trembles, he is not like that in life”, added a relative of the family contacted by AFP. Last week, Mathias Pogba, through the voice of his former lawyer, said to himself “Totally foreign to any extortion maneuver against his brother, Paul Pogba”.
Star of the France team, Paul Pogba had told during his first hearing before the investigators of having been trapped by childhood friends and two hooded men, armed with assault rifles, accusing him of not having helped them financially. , according to information from France Info radio, confirmed to AFP by a source familiar with the matter.