Ex-Palmeiras, Leandro Almeida tried to set up a betting scheme with Bauermann

Leandro Almeida, defender revealed by Atlético-MG and with passages through clubs such as coritiba, palm trees It is Internationaltried to arrange with Eduardo Bauermann, from saintsa yellow card in a game of Serie A 2022. The conversation between the two is part of investigation of Operation Maximum Penalty, which revealed a betting manipulation scheme in Brazilian football. Today, aged 36, the defender is playing for Zebbug Rangers, a team from the island of Malta, in Europe.

Leandro and Bauermann were teammates for a short period at Inter, in 2016. The conversations between them present in the investigation of the Public Ministry of Goiás (MP-GO) take place through the Whatsapp messaging application, between November 3 and 16, period in which the defender from Santos faced the Hawaii without receiving a card and then was expelled, after the final whistle, against Botafogo.

A ESPN confirmed that the Malta number that maintains conversations intercepted with Bauermann is Leandro Almeida with different sources who live with him in the European country, including current teammates. Since last week, however, the same people have reported difficulty finding the defender. The report tried to contact the ex-Palmeiras and Inter player to hear his version both in this number and in the one he kept in Brazil, but without success.

The first messages between Bauermann and Leandro are in screenshots found as deleted on the Santos defender’s cell phone. It is he who sends the first message, at 6:27 pm on the 3rd, the day before the game against Avai: “Speak brother, all in peace? So, let’s go to this Saturday game?”. Leandro Almeida confirms that he is and undertakes to transfer R$50,000 to his former partner, who asks about the card: “It could be the first or second half, right?”

The sequence of messages is from 1 pm on the day that Santos would face Avaí in Vila Belmiro. Leandro doesn’t know, but Bauermann had also committed himself to the group led by gambler Bruno Lopes, provisionally arrested in the operation, to receive a yellow card in the match, according to the investigation. The ex-Palmeiras defender asks him about it.

“Brother, did you arrange this with anyone else? Your odds (at a bookmaker) dropped from 5.00 to 3.60 and now 2.50 and now the card has even been suspended”, says Leandro Almeida, detailing a procedure that happens with odds at bets when there are many bets (or high values) on the same result (or situation) – which may or may not constitute suspicion.

“No, no, bro, you’re crazy. Bro, (let’s) do it next time then? More guaranteed”, replies Bauermann, three minutes later. “Let’s go, iau”, replies Leandro Almeida, who was born in Belo Horizonte. “If you guarantee me, bro. Because now you can’t even play R$ 200 (in the bet that the Santos defender would receive a yellow card against Avai)”.

In the match, which ended in a 1-1 draw, Bauermann, in fact, was not warned, which generated charges and threats by the group led by Bruno Lopes. Also according to investigations, the Santos defender would have then accepted to be expelled in the next game, against Botafogo, to settle with the gang, but receives the red card after the final whistle, which is not valid for the bet.

Leandro Almeida’s scheme would move R$ 130 thousand

Next in the conversation, Leandro Almeida details when the operation would generate cash for him and Bauermann, after the Santos defender suggested the scheme in the next game. “Bro, if you open it, we’ll do it, it’s crazy. You earn R$50,000, and I earn R$80,000. You can’t refuse, right.”

Still at 1:10 pm on the day of Santos vs Avai, Bauermann asks Leandro Almeida for guidance on whether the card arrangement would be maintained or not. The ex-Palmeiras and Inter player advises against yellow.

“Brother, let me know by 2:40 pm that’s the time I’ll be able to keep the cell phone. If it opens, we’ll do it, if not, we’ll leave it for next time, okay?”, writes Bauermann. “Brother, better not, brother. Because, if you fell like that, it’s a risk. Someone is already doing it. Then if they throw you in the next game, it will be low”, replies Leandro.

“So we do it in the next game or in the last game, then, that?”, asks the Santos player. “It closed, for me, yes, bro”, replies the player from Malta, at 13:15.

‘In Brazil, there’s a mafia there. I am different’

Even in the hours before the ball rolls in Vila Belmiro, Leandro Almeida and Bauermann talk naturally about the combined card scheme in Brazilian football.

“That’s why I say I’m afraid. I’ve agreed with nobody and it seems so. But we’ll do it next time or last time”, says Bauermann. “It’s bro, that’s what I said. In Brazil, there’s a mafia like that. I’m different. I like to do my thing calmly, without involving anyone, you know. Even though I earn little. But I don’t put anyone at risk. These players from Avaí, everything they do. And it becomes a mafia there, one passes to the other”, says Leandro, quoting Avaí, which decided to remove defender Raphael Rodrigues for involvement in the investigations of the betting scandal.

The two defenders also cite Juventude, Goiás and Atlético-GO as clubs that would have players involved in the scheme – in fact, all of these teams had at least one athlete from the 2022 squad investigated or cited in the investigations led by the MP-GO.

“Yesterday I discovered 4 from Juventude too. Out of nowhere lol. Man I never thought I would do it”, says Bauermann. “It’s wow, these small teams do everything. Atlético-GO, Goiás…”, counters Leandro.

Bauermann ended the conversation by saying that he would talk to Leandro after the game with Avai. The next day, however, it is the former Palmeiras player who gets in touch, already suspecting a hit by Santos to take the card that ended up not being received. “Brother, be true to me, you agreed to make a card with someone else and it didn’t work? Yesterday the card was suspended (for betting), a person bet a lot on your card”, he says. “Very strange, if you don’t agree with anyone, someone is losing a lot of money”, he adds.

The Santos defender then sends a two-minute audio to Leandro Almeida explaining that he would have arranged a card with a friend (who would be Bruno Lopes) on another occasion and he said that, against Avai, he would not do it.

“Brother, I’m sure he did it, it just went wrong, because as we weren’t going to do it, I said I wasn’t going to do it, I didn’t say anything to him, it even passed, I forgot, I didn’t say anything to him. And suddenly he started doing it, thinking he would be able to make a profit too, but as I agreed with you that I wasn’t going to do it, I ended up not doing it, so the guy tried to be a trickster”, says Bauermann in an excerpt of the message.

Leandro Almeida, then, suggests that Bauermann “speak well with this partner” and also that he take a card in the next game so that he can recover money. With him, the former Palmeiras and Inter player opens the possibility of new schemes in 2023.

“In the next game, even if you don’t match, play the game, the card just for him to recover. I’m not in a hurry. If it’s not this season, we’ll do it next season. The good thing is not to have a problem with anyone like that. Happy to talk to me, know that with me I always think about the player, then the profit.”

‘Is there a player of yours who does what he wants with you?’

As already revealed by the Maximum Penalty Operation, not having received the yellow card against Avaí and then being expelled only after the final whistle against Botafogo meant that Bauermann started to be heavily charged by the gang led by Bruno Lopes. On November 11, then, two days before the last round of the Brasileirão, when he would be suspended, the Santos player asks Leandro Almeida for help, indicating that he would have contact with other athletes involved in the manipulation scheme.

“Speak brother, all in peace? Brother, I have an investor here who wants to do a card situation. Is there a player of yours who does what he wants with you? Now for the last round of the Brazilian… I just don’t do it because I was expelled in the penultimate round. If there’s anyone, let me know. Good money in hand, trustworthy guy.”

“Hey brother, how are you? Everything is fine here, thank God. Man, the worst thing is that I don’t have any players left for this last round. Everyone has already closed. But I think that this last round will not open a card in Brazil”, he replies Leandro, who adds some advice to Bauermann.

“It’s already a migué that you don’t have and get out. You’re young, you’re going to make a lot of money. Leave it to stay in this field after 35 years. I really like you brother, I really do. That’s why I’m telling you, get out of these contacts there.”

Who is Leandro Almeida?

Leandro Almeida emerged in Brazilian football at Atlético-MG, in which he was champion of Minas Gerais in 2007. From Galo, he transferred to Dinamo de Kiev, from Ukraine, which he defended between 2009 and 2012, until he returned to Brazil, to Coritiba. He was hired by Palmeiras in 2015 and played for Internacional, Figueirense, Londrina, Paraná and Guarani, until, in 2020, he moved to Malta. In Europe, he has defended Hibernians and has defended Zebbug Rangers since 2022.

In the 2022 season, Leandro Almeida was elected to the selection of the best players of the Premier League of Malta, by the Association of Professional Players of Malta (MFPA, its acronym in English). It is even a photo in this award that the defender uses on his Whatsapp profile in the conversations that are maintained with Bauermann.