An investigation by Spain's Civil Guard found that charity football matches organized under the name of Lionel Messi in four countries in '12 and '13 "were neither charitable nor altruistic," according to José Antonio Hernández of EL PAIS. The Civil Guard found that the matches "raked in hundreds of thousands of euros that were later stashed away in secret bank accounts" in Curaçao and Hong Kong. Argentine businessman Guillermo Marín represented Messi and co-organized the games under the title "Messi and Friends vs. The Rest of the World." During an interrogation last June, Marín at first said Messi "did not receive any money for his appearances." Later, he admitted that the Leo Messi Foundation received $50,000 for each game -- a total of $300,000. Marín also confessed that he "ordered money to be deposited -- but without specifying how much -- in favor of the firm Mandatos Valneg SRL in a First Caribbean International Bank account on the island of Curaçao." Marín, however, contradicted himself on "various occasions during his interrogation," leaving investigators with a lot of "unanswered questions about where the money generated by the charity matches ended up" (EL PAIS, 1/26).
