The affair caused a lot of noise and even shattered the balance of a family: that of kidnapped and target of an extortion attempt. Two Parisian investigating judges ordered last September the referral to the criminal court of six acquaintances and relatives of Paul Pogba, including his brother Mathias, after two years of investigations into the kidnapping and extortion of the footballer in 2022.
Five of these relatives are suspected of having organized a meeting in the Paris suburbs on March 19, 2022 to force the player to help them financially, in the name of their old friendship. On this occasion, the former international, since then, had been kidnapped and robbed by two men who demanded 13 million euros from him. Both judges considered that it “was not, as some of those indicted were able to maintain, a simple ‘friendly’ meeting but rather facts falling under criminal law“.
Mathias, absent that night and who discovered the kidnapping a posteriori, is suspected of having “put pressure on his brother Paul and his family in order to ensure payment of the sum of 13 million euros”. During the investigation, Mathias assured that he was afraid for his safety and that of his loved ones, then told the judges in January that he had been attacked by the other suspects. If this sum was never transferred, the judges established remittances of funds and values by Paul Pogba to the five relatives, for a total amount estimated at nearly 250,000 euros. This December 4, three years in prison, two of which were suspended, were requested against Mathiaswho was tried before the Paris Criminal Court. He asked thate sentence of one year is placed under an electronic bracelet. He also requested a fine of 10,000 euros against him, for having participated in the extortion attempt and for having exerted numerous pressure on the footballer and his relatives in order to obtain this payment.
Paul Pogba kidnapped: his brother soon to be tried for attempted extortion and criminal conspiracy
During the investigation, the accused developed “a common position“, according to the judges, in “claiming to be victims themselves of the acts of which Paul Pogba is a victim“by enduring”pressure and attacks” of the two armed men designated as sponsors and who have never been identified. The three childhood friends and the two old acquaintances from the neighborhood where the Pogba grew up, in Roissy-en-Brie (Seine-et-Marne), will therefore be judged mainly for extortion, false imprisonment and criminal conspiracy. One of these men is in pre-trial detention.
