Mourinho’s former club raided by Portuguese police over links to Russian mafia

Mourinho’s former club raided by Portuguese police over links to Russian mafia

Jose Mourinho’s former club, Uniao de Leiria, have been raided by Portuguese police over allegations of connections to a Russian mafia gang.

Goal report that three key members of a money laundering gang have been arrested and the Portuguese third division side are under investigation by Europol.

Operation Matrioskas, or Russian dolls, alleges that several million euros have been laundered across Europe with the gang targeting football teams with financial difficulties.

The group would purchase stricken clubs and then launder money using player transfers, deals for television rights and betting.

Mourinho managed Uniao de Leiria for 20 games between managing Benfica and before moving to take on the job at Porto in January 2002.

At that time the club were relatively successful and competing in the Portuguese Primeira Liga, but they have fallen on harder times since.

The club were declared bankrupt in 2013 before being bought by Alexander Tolstikov in 2015.

Uniao de Leiria are only linked to the investigation due to transfer deals with UD Leiria and are not believed to be under suspicion.

They are also not alone, as Sporting Lisbon, Braga and Benfica were also searched by police under the same operation.

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