Switzerland sought Rui Pinto’s help to investigate FIFA president

In late 2018, the identity of Rui Pinto was still unknown and the Swiss authorities were already asking for help from the Portuguese hacker. According to the Público newspaper, in an email sent at the time, prosecutor Damian K. Graf, from the canton of Valais, asked for potentially incriminating information about FIFA president Gianni Infantino, as part of Football Leaks. The hacker eventually accepted.

The prosecutor explained Infantino was suspected of giving undue advantage to another Swiss magistrate, Rinaldo Arnold, so that he could meet secretly with the country’s top prosecutor, Michael Lauber. The FIFA President was suspected of taking advantage of these meetings to derail an investigation into the awarding of a television rights contract to an offshore company.

A week after this email, Rui Pinto replied, saying he was willing to collaborate, but stressed that contact would have to be made through his lawyer. The investigation eventually concluded that the prosecutor Michael Lauber was “guilty of having violated various functions of the office” because it was proven that he had met informally (making no report or record) with Infantino on three occasions.