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19 March 2024

Sisters 'blackmail' football star

Published
By AFP

Mexican police have arrested two sisters on charges of blackmailing football star Oribe Peralta with compromising photos taken at a party, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Peralta, a striker who shone for Mexico at the World Cup in Brazil, reported to police last week that he was being extorted by a young woman he had met at a party who was threatening to publish the photos unless he paid her half a million pesos ($38,000).

Peralta told police that he and the woman exchanged phone numbers at a party in January and that she took pictures of him that made him "uncomfortable," according to investigation documents published in Mexican media.

The reports did not specify what the images were.

Peralta, a married father of two who plays for Mexican club side America, told investigators he feared the photos would compromise his "moral integrity."

He gave 250,000 pesos to a friend to hand over to the young woman.

But he also alerted the authorities, who sent officers to the pick-up site, a Mexico City bar, and arrested the accused and her sister on charges of aggravated extortion.

The women's lawyer told newspaper Reforma that they were the victims of a "trap."

He accused the footballer of "pretending to be blackmailed to take the girls out of the game and obtain the photographs quickly."

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