CELEBRITY
Lady scams Ronaldo of £250k after trusting her with credit card pin
A travel agent has reportedly cheated Manchester United striker Cristiano Ronaldo out of nearly £250,000.
The 53-year-old, named in Portugal as Maria Silva, also scammed the football star’s super-agent Jorge Mendes out of more than £14,000 and former Man Utd winger Nani out of more than £1,500.
Her wrongdoing culminated in her getting a four-year suspended prison sentence at a court in Porto, respected Portuguese daily Jornal de Noticias reported on Sunday.
The newspaper revealed dad-of-four Cristiano, 36, was spared having to attend her trial after she made a full confession.
The four-times Ballon D’or winner gave a statement to police after flying to Porto by private jet and meeting up with his lawyer Carlos Osorio de Castro.
The previously-unreported scandal was laid bare by Jornal de Noticias in an expose about greedy Silva’s breach of the trust Cristiano placed in her by giving her his credit card details and pin codes.The newspaper said the €288,000 she scammed him out of – £245,770 – corresponded to around 200 trips he never made between Portugal and other European countries as well as Europe and Africa and the US.
She reportedly carried out the fraud by getting clients to transfer cash for travel she arranged for them to her personal account instead of the business account of the travel agency she worked for.
She then billed those trips to the accounts of victims like Cristiano Ronaldo, who had given her a ‘virtual’ credit card and pin code, to “fill the hole” in her company’s accounts, the report in Jornal de Noticias said.
The newspaper reported she used the same tactic to rip off the likes of Jorge Mendes, his sports agency Gestifute, Nani and former Portsmouth and Everton footballer Manuel Fernandes.
The fraud cost Fernandes £2,440 and Gestifute £36,000. Silva’s firm Geostar is said to have repaid the fraud victims the money wrongly taken from them and she agreed to pay back monthly compensation to her old employers to avoid going to prison.
Cristiano was targeted between in a three-year period between February 2007 and July 2010 when he was playing for Manchester United first-time round and then Real Madrid following his record £80 million transfer to Spain.
The Portuguese footballer gave the Policia Judiciaria in Porto a statement on June 7 2011 according to Jornal de Noticias.
He is said to have entered the police station via a back door so his presence would go unnoticed.
Former England soccer captain David Beckham and actor Gary Oldman were knighted in King Charles’ annual birthday honours list on Saturday, while sculptor Antony Gormley was made a Companion of Honour.
Beckham, 50, joined Manchester United as a trainee in 1993, going on to make almost 400 appearances for the club where he won a string of titles and cups.
He subsequently played for Real Madrid, LA Galaxy, and Inter Milan, as well as captaining his country 58 times and making 115 appearances.
His marriage to fashion designer and former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham in 1999 cemented a celebrity status which went far beyond his sporting exploits.
Oldman, 67, started his career on the stage, where he was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, before rising to prominence in film. He won the best actor Oscar for playing Winston Churchill in the 2017 drama “Darkest Hour”.
He also had roles in the “Dark Knight Trilogy” and the “Harry Potter” movie series and more recently starred in the TV spy drama “Slow Horses”.
Other famous names receiving honours included damehoods for musical theatre star Elaine Paige, novelist Pat Barker and ceramics maker Emma Bridgewater.
Roger Daltrey, lead singer of rock band the Who and a patron of the Teenage Cancer Trust, received a knighthood for services to charity.
More than 1,200 people received honours for their achievements, with a particular focus on those who had given their time to public service, the government said.
King Charles’ official birthday will be celebrated with the annual “Trooping the Colour” military parade in London on Saturday. His actual birthday is on November 14
-Reuters
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One of three judges in Diego Maradona’s closely scrutinized homicide trial in Argentina resigned on Tuesday amid a scandal triggered by the alleged filming of an unauthorised documentary, bringing uncertainty to the future of legal proceedings.
The high-profile trial over the death of soccer star Maradona began on March 11 in the South American country where the World Cup winner is still revered.
-Reuters
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For the third year in a row, and the fifth time overall, Cristiano Ronaldo is the world’s highest-paid athlete.
But at age 40, the Portuguese soccer superstar is reaching new highs.
Over the past 12 months, counting both his playing salary at Saudi Arabia’s Al-Nassr and his off-field business endeavors, Ronaldo collected an estimated $275 million before taxes and agent fees—the third-best year by an active athlete ever measured by Forbes.
On that all-time list, Ronaldo is surpassed only by boxer Floyd Mayweather, who earned $300 million in 2015 and $285 million in 2018.
And when it comes to the 2025 leaderboard, Ronaldo has a $119 million advantage over No. 2, Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry.
The League of Wealthy Sportsmen
The gap is especially impressive considering that Curry’s $156 million total is also a record for his sport, beating the NBA mark of $128.2 million set last year by LeBron James.
And there are plenty of other eye-popping paydays among this year’s 10 highest-paid athletes, starting with James, who notched a personal-best $133.8 million to land at No. 6. Meanwhile, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott (No. 4, $137million) and New York Mets outfielder Juan Soto (No. 7, $114 million) broke records for the NFL and MLB.
Combined, the 10 highest-paid athletes brought in $1.4 billion, up slightly from last year’s $1.38 billion and the largest total since Forbes began ranking athlete earnings in 1990.
This year is also only the second time, after 2024, that every member of the top 10 made at least $100 million.
In fact, heavyweight boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk ($101 million) and golfer Jon Rahm ($100 million) reached the milestone, too, without managing to crack this list.
For the third year in a row, and the fifth time overall, Cristiano Ronaldo is the world’s highest-paid athlete.
But at age 40, the Portuguese soccer superstar is reaching new highs.
Over the past 12 months, counting both his playing salary at Saudi Arabia’s Al-Nassr and his off-field business endeavors, Ronaldo collected an estimated $275 million before taxes and agent fees—the third-best year by an active athlete ever measured by Forbes.
On that all-time list, Ronaldo is surpassed only by boxer Floyd Mayweather, who earned $300 million in 2015 and $285 million in 2018.
And when it comes to the 2025 leaderboard, Ronaldo has a $119 million advantage over No. 2, Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry.
The gap is especially impressive considering that Curry’s $156 million total is also a record for his sport, beating the NBA mark of $128.2 million set last year by LeBron James.
And there are plenty of other eye-popping paydays among this year’s 10 highest-paid athletes, starting with James, who notched a personal-best $133.8 million to land at No. 6. Meanwhile, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott (No. 4, $137million) and New York Mets outfielder Juan Soto (No. 7, $114 million) broke records for the NFL and MLB.
Combined, the 10 highest-paid athletes brought in $1.4 billion, up slightly from last year’s $1.38 billion and the largest total since Forbes began ranking athlete earnings in 1990.
This year is also only the second time, after 2024, that every member of the top 10 made at least $100 million.
In fact, heavyweight boxing champion Oleksandr Usyk ($101 million) and golfer Jon Rahm ($100 million) reached the milestone, too, without managing to crack this list.
World’s Highest-Paid Athletes 2025
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