Leopard Trek headquarters searched by Luxembourg police – Cycling News
Flavio Becca’s offices and home have been searched by Luxembourg police as a result of a tax investigation. Becca is the main man behind the team Leopard Trek as he founded the team in 2011 and recruited Brian Nygaard and Kim Andersen to handle the managerial
responsibilities.
Becca came up with the decision to merge his team with another UCI Pro team and form RadioShack-Nissan-Trek for the 2012 season. Team Leopard Trek is currently at Number 2 at the UCI World Tour Teams Ranking with 1018 points as of September 2011 while Omega
Pharma Lotto leads the ranking with 1079 points.
Flavio is a businessman and made his fortune out of real estate as his empire includes a shopping mall, a football stadium and he also runs the F91 football club. Henri Eippers is the justice spokesman as he told wurt.lu that Becca’s residence and offices
were searched this Tuesday and no further details were confirmed by him.
Becca was in the news since the announcement of his team joining hands with RadioShack as the merger was confirmed for the 2012 and 2013 seasons. On commenting about the merger Becca said, "As we stated in January, 2011 would be our apprentice-year. We intend
to improve upon our results. In modern cycling you cannot move forward without strong sponsors.” Team owner was commenting during a press release as he further added, “I continue to believe in the bright future of our athletes and have high expectations for
the performance of this team. This is a major strategic move for all partners involved."
The investigation related to tax matters appears to have nothing to do with the team but it is still unclear as not much information about the case has been provided. Becca has invested €15-million in the Leopard Trek team this year and is the only financial
backer behind the squad. After the announcement of the team merging with RadioShack it is expected that he will have to spend less in the team for the coming season. Police has also searched the headquarters of the team but Leopard Trek has confirmed that
UCI has already completed their audit.
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