“We hoped that we would never write this message”. Further on. “But we want to be honest with you. Uefa football will not be able to go on ”. The message appeared late yesterday on the Telegram channel of Uefa Football. A sports betting site most followed in Italy. The promise of easy earnings. Safe interests. 2.5% of the amount invested, every day. Like a fixed salary.
For months, Uefa Football has managed to attract thousands of people. Then comes Consob. Close the site. The suspicion is that this is a huge ponzi scheme. Able to make millions of euros disappear. Tens, maybe hundreds of millions. About fifty thousand people. The message continues. And with a perhaps involuntary irony he gives the meaning of the whole story: “We know very well that there are people who have gained thanks to the Uefa platform and that many have lost us”.
Some earn. Many lose. They tell them. This is a bit like what happens in Ponzi schemes: the former earn by investing funds in companies that promise good coupons; investments are never made but investors are given coupons from the money they themselves invest; they are convinced that the game works, they invite others to try; the scheme expands, the pyramid as well, until the game is no longer sustainable. And it collapses. While whoever created everything runs away with the loot. Who knows if this will be another case after the one involving Silea’s New Financial Technology.
What did Uefa Football do and who is behind it
Uefa Football has nothing to do with Uefa, the governing body of world football. He borrowed the name. It is a football hedge fund. From the descriptions that can still be read online, many of these still support the goodness of the project, we understand that it is a platform, linked to a fund, which allows you to buy and sell betting odds. How do you do for stocks or cryptocurrencies.
From this game, regulated by a “precise algorithm”, we still read on some online forums, the company promised a certain profit. Those who invested in it earned. The investment was made through an app. Who is behind the project is not known. There are no names. Neither faces. Some sites mention an Arab holding. Others of very Italian actors. Mystery.
Success in Italy. Then the cryptocurrency tour
Uefa Football achieved some success before Consob was alerted by users and by a sector portal that first intercepted the company. Doubting its seriousness and safety. Decripto.org. A series of inquiries. Then the report to Consob. Arrived along with other reports. Consob intervenes and decrees: this is an offer to the public of non-regular financial products, the site must be banned. And it does.
What about the money? Gone. Or better. They travel in blockchain cryptocurrencies in blockhain. Passages of portfolios, people, profiles, because to get this money out of the blockchain, explains the site, you need documents and an exchange point with real money. An exchange. It is not certain that they are not recoverable. But it will be very difficult.
“An impressive social cross-section”
Meanwhile, the stories of those who have lost everything can be read on the Telegram channels. Workers, unemployed people, people who first invested a few hundred euros, began to see the first returns, then they invested again. Until the collapse of the pyramid.
“What is most impressive is the social cross-section that comes out of it. People obviously unaware of any threats behind these offers, ”says Giorgio Scura, director of Decripto.org, which has launched a Telegram channel for complaints. Before the farewell to the scammed users, a final gabelle. Pay 26% of the profits generated up to which time to a cryptocurrency wallet to keep the treasury good. Here too it seems all made up. Even here, however, there are those who have fallen for it.