The current life of Sahin (37), ex-footballer, after being scammed by a network that appropriated his identity from the Treasury

Nuri Sahin, former Actual Madrid participant, was one of the crucial outstanding victims of a million-dollar plot that impersonated dozens of athletes earlier than the Spanish Tax Company to maintain their tax refunds.

The case, which ended with the conviction of a senior Treasury official and a number of other collaborators, left the Turkish footballer with out greater than 1.2 million euros that by no means reached his account.

Nuri Sahin (Lüdenscheid, 1988) is a former Turkish-German midfielder who stood out at a really younger age for Borussia Dortmund, the place he grew to become one of the crucial promising midfielders in Europe. His good seasons within the Bundesliga caught the eye of Actual Madrid, who signed him in 2011 as a future guess for the white midfield.

Accidents and the large competitors within the squad prevented Sahin from having continuity within the Madrid shirt, so he ended up having a collection of mortgage spells at Liverpool and once more at Dortmund earlier than leaving completely.

Even so, his title remained linked to the white membership and the Spanish League, the place he developed a part of the profession that may find yourself consolidating him as a global footballer.

From contained in the Treasury

The rip-off that affected Sahin was concocted from inside the Tax Company itself by a high-ranking inspector and a number of other accomplices, together with specialised legal professionals.

The mechanism was apparently easy: they took benefit of the truth that many overseas athletes who had performed in Spain had the appropriate to refunds of private earnings tax after they left the nation, however they had been unaware of this proper and didn’t declare it.

With privileged access to tax data, the official identified these players and provided their personal and tax information to the network, which impersonated their identity before the Treasury.

Those involved submitted refund requests in the names of the athletes, falsifying signatures, residence certificates and withholding documents, and designated bank accounts controlled by the plot to receive the money.

Millionaire scam

Among the victims was Nuri Sahin, used by the plot to divert one of the largest amounts. Through these fraudulent requests, those convicted appropriated approximately 1.2 million euros that should have been paid to the former Real Madrid player as tax refunds.

In total, the network managed to obtain around 6.2 million euros belonging to high-level footballers and basketball players between 2014 and 2016, according to court resolutions. The case is considered one of the largest tax scams specifically targeting professional athletes in Spain.

Other scammed athletes

Sahin was not the only one affected. At least 38 athletes accredited in the case appear on the list of victims, and the Tax Agency raised the number of possible victims to more than 100.

Among them, another Turkish ex-Madrid player, Hamit Altintop, stands out, from whom around 552,000 euros were stolen, and the former Atlético player Eduardo Salvio, with more than 370,000 euros stolen.

The plot would also have reached footballers from clubs such as Sevilla, Osasuna, Málaga, Deportivo and Valencia, as well as basketball players from the ACB. Investigators described the system as a “diabolical scam,” designed so that victims would not even know they were entitled to the money others were claiming on their behalf.

His goodbye to Real Madrid

Despite being one of the great financial victims of the plot, Sahin’s career continued far from the judicial spotlight. After his time at Real Madrid and his loan spells, he returned to Borussia Dortmund, went through Werder Bremen and closed his career as a player at Antalyaspor, in the Turkish league.

After hanging up his boots, he made the jump to the bench and began his career as a coach, continuing to be linked to elite football from the technical area.

Today, Nuri Sahin’s name is mentioned both as an example of a young talent who reached the top in Europe and as an athlete who had to face a sophisticated tax scam without having lifted a finger, a victim of identity theft that exposed the system’s vulnerabilities.