Syria, Libya, Sarajevo, Mosul, Sahara… The conflicts in which Marc Vidal claims to have worked are numerous. Almost all important in recent times. Supported by maps and photographs, it dazzles 3rd and 4th year ESO, high school, higher education students… The problem is that Marc Vidal -or Marc Vila- is not called that. He doesn’t work for Reuters either, as he is featured at most conferences. Under that identity hides Albert Cusidó, previously accused of fraud. Since at least 2016, he has given talks in educational centers throughout Catalonia, posing as a photojournalist. The last one, the March 21, at the Santa Eulalia institute in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat.
He charged 80 euros, but in reality it was expensive. The conference reached the ears of various photojournalists from Barcelona. A small world where no one knows this Marc Vidal. “I have used a name that is not mine to preserve my identity,” he wields Cusidó to questions from this newspaper. He defends that everything he tells in the talks “has lived it”, and denies having presented himself as a Reuters staff. “I have always said that I am freelancing”, defends Cusidó, 51, who admits that he has never published a photograph in the media.
The City Council of L’Hospitalet has sent a circular to all the schools in the municipality. “We have learned that a person pretends to be a photojournalist and offers paid lectures on conflict and war situations to the city’s educational centers to the world,” the letter reads. Ask colleges and institutes to check the “truthfulness of the professionals” they hire and if anyone else has received a similar offer, let them know. They have also notified the Department of Education of the Generalitat.
Although Cusidó denies it, in most schools he is advertised as a Reuters photojournalist. “His name is Marc Vidal and he has been working at the Reuters company since 1993”, they introduced him in October 2019 at the Daina Isard center in Olesa de Montserrat. In 2016, she attended the Pinediques de Taradell school. There, as a “Reuters photojournalist”, spoke to the students of a higher cycle of refugees. The same thing he did that same year in the Guindàvols Institute of Lleida. or in the school of Mare de Déu de Montserrat, andn Castellbisbal. In 2017, she acted in Llobregat Institute of Sallent. The same year, the “Reuters agency photographer” He went to the Brugulat Institute in Banyoles. and to Cirviànum Institute of Torelló. and to school Sant Martí, d’Arenys de Munt. In 2018, she went to the Claret school in Valls where the “photojournalist from the Reuters agency” analyzed a “quarantine of photographs of world impact, some made by Marc Vidal himself.” In March 2020, he taught four classes at the Josep Vallverdú Institute, of the Borges Blanques. In November 2021, he gave a full workshop at the Francesc Macià institute in Cornellà on how to “interpret images”. “Hosted by photojournalist Marc Vila, who has worked for the Reuters agency, covering numerous conflicts around the world”, says the summary of the talk, posted on the center’s blog. A presentation similar to of the Jesuit school of El Clot, in March 2021 in Barcelona. The news agency is restrictive. “This person does not work for Reuters and has no relationship with the company. We are investigating the matter and will take the necessary measures,” a Reuters spokeswoman told this newspaper yesterday.
In the presentations, some schools add that Marc Vidal is a member of the “Association of Photojournalists of Barcelona”. An organization that they do not know in the College of Journalists of Catalonia, nor the UPIFC image union. The entity has been registered since 2003 in the registry of the Department of Justice of the Generalitat. The only reference on the internet places her on the university campus of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), with a telephone that does not work. The UAB assures that it has no headquarters there.
The well-known relationship between Cusidó and photojournalism began in the UAB vila -the campus student residence-, which ended with a group complaint of thirty people for fraud in 2015. The UAB university confirms that Cusidó had rented a local in Vila, where he gave life to Kevlar Fotoperiodistas and Reporter Academy, two brands with which Cusidó, born in Sabadell, dedicated himself to organizing trips for journalists, future journalists, or even photography enthusiasts, mainly to Bosnia and the Sahara. Using the umbrella of the UAB, of which he was not actually a member, he popularized the courses. He also gave some talks in journalism workshops and masters at the university. And on at least three occasions he invited and used photojournalist Gervasio Sánchez as a claim for his trips.
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“I can’t believe it,” laments Sánchez, very angry, upon learning of a new possible deception by Cusidó. Gervasio was the one who publicly denounced in 2015, by long letter, Cusidó’s scam of thirty people who paid for some courses that were not done. One of them is Iván Pérez, currently a director. Pérez traveled to Bosnia with Cusidó. They were cheap and fun courses, remembers Pérez, in which he learned. And he decided to repeat several times. “At that time [Cusidó] I already gave talks and classes in institutes”, explains Pérez. When the trips suddenly began to be suspended, Cusidó “stopped answering the phones and emails.” She vanished. They denounced him for a pufo of 18,000 euros. “After a lot of effort, we gave up,” says Pérez. Nobody has recovered the money. In Vila, after a decade, he stopped paying the rent for the premises, and never appeared again, says a UAB spokesman.
The photographer Jordi Martí was the one who worked the most with Cusidó. “Albert has never posted any photos anywhere because he doesn’t take photos. He never goes with a camera, ”says Martí, who describes Cusidó as a person with charisma, an excellent speaker, full of ideas. In the courses, Martí was in charge of the photography workshops and Cusidó organized the trips. “He had many contacts, but it was all very chaotic. For example, nine people were in a van, in which only seven could go, since two crossed the border on foot, ”he explains. “Everything was quite illegal,” he adds, in terms of permits, insurance and other formal requirements for those trips. But Cusidó turned any problem into an exercise so that the students would learn to find a life for themselves. When he “disappeared” with the money from the students and the bus company that transported them, the people claimed Martí. “As if I had also done the same,” he laments, and assures that he was one more scammed, that he sinned by being young and inexperienced. Martí, through his own company, continues to organize similar courses. “But everything in order, with contracts and insurance,” he clarifies.
Cusidó assured this newspaper yesterday that he will no longer continue giving lectures in educational centers. “I am putting an end to this stage,” he affirmed, but not before defending that some schools, in which he gave talks before the complaint about the suspended trips, knew his real name. “And yes, I hurt a lot of people, but I also helped a lot more. But now they are not. If I could have solved it, I would have done it”, he defended himself, about what happened in 2015. “I don’t feel proud at all. And I still want to, and intend to, repair the wrongdoing,” he added. “I’m not a monster,” he sentenced.
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