Former Manchester City star Robinho is allegedly serving his jail sentence in Brazil with some disreputable company, including a woman who stabbed her husband 56 times and was abandoned by her prison boyfriend.
Robinho was sentenced to nine years in prison last March after lengthy legal battles, initially convicted of gang rape and sentenced in Italy in 2017.
He was one of six men found guilty of assaulting an Albanian woman in an Italian nightclub in January 2013.
Robinho now resides in the infamous Dr. José Augusto César Salgado P2 prison in Tremembe, Sao Paulo state, nicknamed “the prison of the famous.”
Its disgusting cast of high-profile inmates includes a man who killed his own daughter; one who is locked up for 98 years after kidnapping and murdering a 15-year-old girl; and a former doctor who abused 39 sedated patients.
Additionally, inmates have come up with their own offline version of the Tinder dating app, where guards help match them, according to SPORT and the journalist Ulisses Campbell.
Former Manchester City star Robinho serves nine years behind bars in Brazil for gang rape
Their Tremembe prison houses high-profile criminals and inmates have created their own version of Tinder.
Many inmates were allowed out over Christmas, but Robinho was not considered eligible
The dating network has been created in a women's penitentiary about five kilometers away. Prisoners send photos to each other and guards read the letters they exchange.
In one case, a woman who was jailed for stabbing her husband 56 times was allegedly abandoned by a man who killed her brother.
The man, named Vinicius Nunes, was not impressed that Jaqueline Moraes looked “thinner and younger” in person than in photos, and ended up getting engaged to another woman through the dating service.
At Robinho prison, inmates are forced to squeeze into cells measuring between eight and 15 square meters, with some holding up to six.
Around 2,500 prisoners are housed at the facility, which is close to where Arsenal star Gabriel Jesus grew up, but there are no gang leaders there for fear of violence.
Many of them were released for 11 days over Christmas, but Robinho was not deemed eligible for the festive benefit, meaning he did not have family time with his wife Vivian and their three children at their home in Santos.
Among the 117 prisoners at the Robinho private center who benefit from 11 days of freedom is Lindemberg Alves, according to local reports.
He was sentenced to 39 years in prison in 2013 for the October 2008 kidnapping and murder of his ex-girlfriend Eloa Cristina Pimentel, 15, held hostage for 100 hours before being shot to death.
Robinho was placed in this police car following his arrest in the coastal city of Santos.
Robinho was capped 100 times for Brazil in his playing career, scoring 28 international goals.
Robinho had initially been sentenced in 2017, but it took seven years to bring him to justice.
Italian authorities wanted him to serve nine years in Italy, but he was in Brazil, where the law normally prohibits the extradition of native-born criminals.
Italy appealed for him to be extradited in 2022 before a landmark ruling by Brazil's Superior Court of Justice (BSCJ) sentenced him in his home country.
Robinho, who was 28 and playing for AC Milan at the time of the gang rape, admitted during his appeal to having had “contact” with the woman, but the Brazilian insisted it was consensual.
The Milan Court of Appeal found that Robinho had “belittled” and “brutally humiliated” the victim and upheld his original sentence in December 2020.
The intercepted telephone calls between the Brazilian and those allegedly involved in the attack were used as key evidence in his initial conviction.
Robinho had said: “It makes me laugh because I'm not interested, the woman was drunk, she doesn't even know what happened.”
The striker had secured a move back to Santos in 2020, where he was handed a contract worth the minimum wage.
The Italian authorities had wanted to imprison him there but failed in their extradition attempt.
But he was forced to terminate the contract amid protests over his signing, and a major sponsor withdrew its support for the football club.
The winger came through the Santos academy, where he was seen as one of Brazil's rising stars.
He would go on to play 137 games for Real Madrid, 53 for Manchester City and 144 for AC Milan during his playing career. He also played 100 games for the Brazil national team.