Former Australian prop Richard Villasanti has made a shock revelation, exposing an operation over 20 years ago.<\/p>\n
Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, he admitted he was the target of a Scotland<\/a> Yard sting operation during\u00a0the Kangaroos’ 2003 tour of Great Britain, as authorities sought to identify the culprit behind a $5000 theft from team hotel rooms in Leeds.<\/p>\n Villasanti said police allegedly installed hidden cameras in his hotel room in an attempt to catch him out, but no evidence was ever found linking him to the incident.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a Scotland<\/a> Yard detective who placed cameras in my room to try and set me up with bait,\u201d Villasanti told the Daily Telegraph.<\/p>\n \u201cHe told me on the way to the airport that I was in a set-up sting that I didn’t know about.\u201d<\/p>\n The Australian Rugby League<\/a> investigated the missing cash but was unable to identify a suspect. <\/p>\n Villasanti, who played one Test for Australia<\/a> on that tour, has consistently denied the allegations for more than two decades.<\/p>\n Now 45, the former Warriors and Sharks forward insists he’s long moved on.<\/p>\n \u201cI couldn’t give two f\u2026s what people say, and you can print that,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n \u201cIt was 22 years ago, any publicity is good publicity.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the controversy, Villasanti said he still values his Kangaroos memories and remains grateful for the experience.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy would I get angry? We all know the truth but we just can’t say anything, that’s all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n A veteran of 116 NRL<\/a> games across stints with Balmain, Wests Tigers<\/a>, New Zealand Warriors<\/a> and Cronulla, Villasanti helped lead the Warriors to the 2002 Grand Final, and was remembered for his heavy collision with Roosters captain Brad Fittler<\/a>.<\/p>\n These days, he runs a plumbing business in Canberra and assists with junior rugby league coaching.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Australian prop Richard Villasanti has made a shock revelation, exposing an operation over 20 years ago. Speaking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-243813","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-national-rugby-league","11":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","12":"tag-nrl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}