PARIS: French anti-corruption police searched the homes of Paris Saint-Germain footballers Angel Di Maria and Javier Pastore as well as the club’s offices on Tuesday as part of an investigation into alleged financial offences, a source close to the probe said.

The police operations were conducted as part of an investigation opened last December by the national financial prosecutors’ office into alleged laundering of money acquired by fraud, the source said.

According to the Mediapart internet site, the searches of the Argentinians’ homes and PSG offices in Paris and Boulogne-Billancourt stemmed from media reports last December of large-scale tax evasion by football stars.

That same month, a group of 12 European news outlets began publishing the results of months of investigations into millions of financial documents obtained by the German magazine Der Spiegel and dubbed the “Football Leaks”.

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2017