Soccer Football - Ligue 1 - FC Metz v Paris St Germain - Stade Saint-Symphorien, Metz, France - December 13, 2025 Paris St Germain's Lucas Hernandez during the warm up before the match REUTERS/Catherine Steenkeste
PARIS, Jan 21 (Reuters) - French prosecutors are investigating Paris St Germain and France defender Lucas Hernandez and his partner following allegations of human trafficking and illegal employment by a Colombian family, a judicial source said on Wednesday.
They pair denied any wrongdoing, saying they acted with good faith and kindness but had been manipulated.
The probe, opened by the Versailles prosecutor’s office, concerns accusations that the family of five was employed without legal status between September 2024 and November 2025, according to the plaintiffs’ lawyer Lola Dubois.
The Colombians, who performed babysitting and security roles, had no days off and sometimes worked up to 82 hours a week, Dubois told Reuters.
In a statement sent to Reuters, 2018 World Cup winner Hernandez and his partner Victoria Triay rejected the accusations. "We opened our home and our lives to people who presented themselves as friends, who sought our kindness and for whom we had genuine affection," they said.
"They shared our lives with respect and dignity. We helped them, supported them and believed them when they told us they were in the process of regularising their situation. That trust was betrayed.”
In the statement, the couple said they were manipulated by emotional stories and false assurances and never acted with contempt for the law. "We acted as human beings — and learned, painfully, that compassion can be exploited,” they said.
(Reporting by Julien Pretot and Vincent Daheron; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
