Fake ‘Diogo Jota Foundation’ Website Vanishes After Raising £50,000 As Family Denies Links.

A website for a foundation which claims to have been set up in memory of Diogo Jota has been taken down after it was alleged that it has no connection to his family or Liverpool. Jota and his brother tragically died in a car crash in July, just days after the footballer married his long-term partner Rute Cardoso.

The Diogo Jota Foundation has been accepting donations through a website, diogojotafoundation.org, which was set up three days after his death and claimed to have raised £47,715 as of August 21. A privacy screen via ‘namecheaphosting’ is seen when searching for the domain name.

The site is not believed to be affiliated with Liverpool or Jota’s family at all. Liverpool told the Telegraph that both the club and the family know nothing about the foundation or the website. And on the morning on August 22, the website appears to no longer be active with users instead redirected to a domain hosting site.

The Charity Commission has also confirmed that the foundation has not submitted a registration application. Along with Liverpool, the website also features logos for Unicef, Allianz and the Portuguese Platform of Development NGOs and at least three of the four have confirmed they are not working with the foundation.

Liverpool already announced last month that the LFC Foundation has “committed to creating a grass-roots football programme in Diogo’s name”. The club also added: “If supporters would like to honour Diogo by having ‘Diogo J. 20’ printed on the back of their shirt in official club stores or via our official online store, all profits will go to LFC Foundation.”

An Allianz UK statement read: “We can confirm that we do not have a partnership, and our logo should not have been used on this website. We monitor illegal use of our brand and we are taking steps to get the website shut down by the suitable authorities. Misuse of branding is an ongoing issue in the digital world, and fraudsters will often try to add recognised brands to their fake websites to try and deceive the public.”

The website directs users to donate through an off-site platform that only appears to accept cryptocurrency, stating that it “accepts USDT, ETH and other crypto through NOWPayments securely”.

However, NOWPayments CEO Kate Lifshits says that they have not processed any payments to the foundation. “We are aware that the NOWPayments payment system may have been used for fraudulent fundraising activities on behalf of a foundation that is not affiliated with the Diogo Jota family,” Lifshits said.