Brazil fraudsters created 'phantom athletes' in scam

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Brazilian fraudsters invented Olympic "phantom athletes" in a scam to get state sports subsidies, police said Friday.

The crooks applied to receive money from the 2016 Olympic host country's Sports Fund for non-existent athletes whose profiles they had created.

"Over a year, the criminal gang created 25 phantom athletes, including high-performance and Olympic-level ones," the federal police said in a statement.

The fraud was committed in 2012 and according to the sports ministry it could have amounted to the equivalent of about a million reais (315,000 US dollars), it said.

Police have arrested six people who will go before a federal judge and seized documents and other evidence.

Brazil has been suffering from a much broader corruption scandal linked to state oil firm Petrobras.

That affair has led to countless politicians and executives being jailed.

Some of the recent wave of corruption cases involved construction projects for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Brazil's Federal Police have also called for the indictment of 21 people, including two ex-governors of the capital Brasilia, for allegedly overcharging 559 million reais (178 million US dollars) in the renovation of the stadium used in the 2014 World Cup.

Source(s): AFP ,Reuters