• Detention: Former Valencia president Juan Soler arrested for trying to kidnap Vicente Soriano
  • Enemistad: The rich boy from dad's cinemas, hunting for the 'tiger' hustler
  • Espionage: Football, Colombian hitmen and an attempted kidnapping: espionage among presidents of Valencia CF

The former president and former maximum shareholder of Valencia Juan Soler has been sentenced by the Second Section of the Valencian Court to two years in prison for the attempted kidnapping of another former Valencian president, Vicente Soriano. Soler was arrested in April 2014 with two other people, the hospitality entrepreneur Ciro D'Anna and a well-known nightlife guard, Abdellatif Laauroubi, aka Tati for having warned the abduction of the businessman who once was his friend and who he owed 80 million euros. All have been sentenced to prison terms, as well as Rachid Behdaoui , police confidant, key in the plot.

The Prosecutor's Office has maintained throughout the procedure that the three main defendants agreed to kidnap Soriano in March 2014 to pay off their debt to Soler and, for this, they had Rachid Behdaoui. The idea was to put it in a van and move it to a ground floor in Alfafar and then take it abroad. They also planned the assault on the central house of Soriano , very close to that of Soler, where they believed they could have saved 15 million euros . Behdaoui told the police about the events and, after follow-ups and recordings, arrests were recorded.

The Prosecutor's Office had requested nine months in prison for Soler and the two businessmen for an alleged crime of illegal detention, while the private prosecution, exerted by Vicente Soriano, demanded eight years in prison for Soler, D'Anna and 'Tati' for the kidnapping and six years in jail for the same crime for Rachid.

The mobile that originated this rocambolesque attempted kidnapping was only economic. Vicente Soriano pledged in July 2009 to buy for 85.5 million euros the 70,899 shares that the Soler family owned from Valencia CF and which granted him the majority to, in turn, be able to sell the club to Dalport Investments. Verified that the promissory notes with which the Uruguayan company intended to deal with the purchase of the club were false, Soriano was solely responsible for dealing with the agreement signed before a notary with Juan Soler. In addition, the shares no longer had value because the capital increase that made the Valencia CF Foundation the 'owner' of the club had been completed. His packages, the two most important, were diluted.

Since then, the lawsuits in the courts were crossed. Soriano tried to undo the deal so as not to pay the three installments of 20, 30 and 35 million euros to which he promised. And Soler, with his companies in bankruptcy proceedings and the brick crisis reducing their assets, has never agreed to forgive even one euro. In February 2013, the Supreme Court rejected Soriano's appeal to avoid payment and was sentenced to pay 39 million euros, the second term plus interest. He had previously been forced to pay another 20 million in the first installment, plus six interest.

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  • Supreme Court
  • Valencia CF

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