Cristiano Ronaldo was reportedly swindled out of $340,000 by a travel agent who scammed him for over 3 years

• Cristiano Ronaldo was swindled out of more than $340,000 by a Portuguese travel agent over three years, a Portuguese newspaper reports.
• Maria Silva fraudulently booked around 200 trips for clients, before pocketing their money and charging Ronaldo's credit card.
• She was given a four-year suspended prison sentence and agreed to pay the money back.

A travel agent scammed Manchester United soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo out of around $340,000 over a decade ago, according to a Portuguese newspaper.

Maria Silva, a 53-year-old Portuguese woman, appeared in court on Sunday where she confessed to having swindled Ronaldo as well as his agent Jorge Mendes and another soccer player, Nani.

Portuguese newspaper Jornal de Noticias reports that Mendes lost $20,000 and Nani lost $2,000 during the fraud, which took place between 2007 and 2010.

Silva gained access to Ronaldo's credit card details and pin codes before booking 200 trips across Europe, Africa and the US for her clients.

Clients would then pay her their fees to a personal account, instead of the travel agency she worked for, Geostar.

"In Geostar's accounts, CR7, family and friends made countless trips to Bissau, Milan, Lyon, Sao Paulo, Paris, Brussels, Barcelona, Belgrade and Sao Tome, among many other destinations," Jornal de Noticias wrote, according to a translation by the Daily Mirror.

"The trips were generally paid through a virtual terminal the travel agent had access to because of her job specifications," it added.

While Ronaldo's financial misfortune would be hugely detrimental to any normal person's finances, the $340,000 he lost is equivalent to less than a week's wages for the Portuguese star.

According to numerous British media outlets, Ronaldo earns around $525,000 per week at his current club Manchester United, meaning that the money is equivalent to just four-and-a-half days wages.

Ronaldo was targeted between February 2007 and July 2010, during which time he made a $110 million move to Real Madrid from Manchester United.

Silva appeared in a court in Porto and agreed to pay the money back to the scammed clients in order to avoid prison.

The 53-year-old, who now works as a cleaner, has been given a four-year suspended sentence.