Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1093354
3 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 17 MARCH 2019 NEWS Know that you've made a healthy investment Call us on 2090 8100 Timberland Securi es Investment plc. (incorporated in Malta with registered office at 171, Old Bakery Street, Valle a) is the issuer of the bonds in terms of a Prospectus dated 23rd November 2018, approved by the Liechtenstein Financial Market Authority and passported into Malta. The authorised distributor of the bonds, Timberland Invest Ltd (with business office at Aragon Business Centre, Dragonara Road, St. Julian's, STJ 3140) is regulated by the MFSA, under the Investment Services Act. Prospec ve investors should note that the bonds are not redeemable before maturity. If you invest in these bonds, you will not have access to your money before the maturity date. However, you may transfer or sell your bonds to third par es, in accordance with the terms of the Prospectus. The value of your investment may go up as well as down and you may lose some or all the amount that you invested. A copy of the prospectus is available free of charge, during normal business hours, from the business office of Timberland Invest Ltd or through: h ps://www. mberland-malta.com. 2 New bond issues yield for a 5 year period maturing in 2023 A bond with yield for a 10 year period maturing in 2028 Another bond with Timberland Invest Ltd is the appointed distributor of bonds issued in Malta by Timberland Securi es Investment plc. 3.75% 4.6% Minimum investment of €3,000 Investment in the bonds should be based on the full details of the Prospectus CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 The company may appeal the decision before the Financial Services Tribunal. The company is famously behind a criminal complaint it lodged in 2015 against Portuguese whistleblower Rui Pinto, who published the secrets of the global soccer industry, and is now fac- ing extradition to Portugal from Hun- gary. His lawyers insist that his whistle- blowing activities far outweigh any crimes he might have committed in securing the documents. In Portugal, Pinto, 30, is charged with an extortion attempt in 2015 on a secretive invest- ment fund that had bet millions of dol- lars in the player transfer market. The leaks first emerged in 2015, on a website called Football Leaks. A year later Pinto teamed up with the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel and the Eu- ropean Investigative Collaborations (EIC) network to slowly disseminate related news articles. Over two years, the EIC published over 800 stories on the dirty deals in football, leading to criminal investiga- tions and prosecutions for crimes of money laundering, fraud, and tax eva- sion. One of the most spectacular is the case of Cristiano Ronaldo, who last year admitted to a Spanish court that he failed to pay taxes on €150 million of advertising revenue he received over many years. The multi-millionaire and five-times Ballon D'Or winner ended up with a fine and suspended prison sentence. Doyen is now also behind a libel claim filed in Romania against the media website The Black Sea, an EIC member, to force the removal of eight stories that mention the company's history, business and political connec- tions – namely with the Arif family of Kazakhstan. "Football Leaks was not only about football. Pinto's documents helped re- veal a shady multi-million dollar ship- ping deal of the family of Turkey's pres- ident, which inspired EIC network's sister project, Malta Files," The Black Sea reports, of the collaboration that included MaltaToday. "Doyen is the brand term for a sprawling network of companies, many of which are registered in tax havens. The principal owners are the Kazakh-born Arif family, for- merly known as Arifov. Refik, Rustem, Vakif and Tevfik are brothers who made their wealth in the filthy privatised metals industry after the collapse of the Soviet Union... "The Kazakh foundry appears to be the source of the nearly $80 mil- lion that funded Doyen's sports enterprise in management and Third Party Ownership (TPO) – a practice later banned by FI- FA. This was the brainchild of Tevfik's son, Arif Efendi, and Portuguese businessman Nelio Lucas." FIFA recently fined Portuguese club Porto $50,000 for allowing Doy- en to influence the club's transfers. FIFA's disciplinary committee de- termined that Porto "entered into contracts that enabled the third party to have an influ- ence on the club's inde- pendence and policies in transfer relat- ed matters." D o y e n Sport is currently in a fight in the Brus- sels courts with FIFA and UEFA over sanctions imposed for their apparent violations of the TPO ban, through dealings with third division Belgian side RFC Seraing. The ban was intro- duced in 2015 to protect the integrity of football to prevent investing in forced transfers to make a profit. The third- party investment model was most pop- ular with agents, investors and clubs in Latin America, Spain and Portugal. The allegations made by the Portu- guese authorities against Pinto date back to 2015. Using a false name, Pinto had requested money from the manag- ers of Doyen in exchange for not pub- lishing documents about them. "The deal never materialised and Pinto did not collect any money for the docu- ments. Today, he explains that this action was the prank of a stupid boy who wanted to test how much Doyen thought the documents were worth. Nevertheless, this is the source of his legal problems in Portugal," The Black Sea reports. Pinto's documents helped reveal a shady multi- million dollar shipping deal of the family of Turkey's president, which inspired EIC network's sister project, Malta Files Malta firm chasing down whistleblower Rui Pinto's revelations were crucial to expose a tax avoidance scam that saw footballer Cristiano Ronaldo (top) admit to a Spanish court that he had failed to pay tax on €150 million of advertising revenue, as well as a shady multi-million shipping deal that included the family of Turkish president Recep Erdogan (left)