Laurence Dollimore
MALAGA FC coach Victor Sanchez has been suspended after a ‘sexually intimate’ video of him went viral on social media this week.
The controversial suspension comes after Sanchez claimed he was the victim of ‘harassment and extortion’.
Sanchez says he was contacted by ‘hackers’ who threatened to release the video if he did not pay them €20,000 in Bitcoin.
The video was allegedly taken without the consent of Sanchez and police records seem to match his story.
He denounced the blackmail attempt at a police station in Oviedo on Saturday.
He told them he was being extorted via a social media account.
Sanchez repeated this claim at a Malaga police station this week.
It is not yet clear how the alleged cybercriminals managed to capture the video.
The coach’s computer or account may have been hacked, giving access to pre-existing images, or if he was sexting with someone, he may have been unaware they were recording it.
Policia Nacional’s cybercrime unit is now working to identify those behind the extortion, however they are believed to have used sophisticated IP ‘anonymisers’ and most likely acted from a foreign country, making it extremely difficult to catch and stop them.
Police are also looking into those who retweeted or shared the images online.
The collaboration in the diffusion of the images is a violation of image rights.
Article 197 of the Criminal Code punishes the dissemination of private images without authorisation.
It means those who shared the video may face between three months and one year in prison.
It also opens them up to hefty civil cases.
