Switzerland: The Federal Office of Justice (FOJ) today handed over an initial package of evidence to the US authorities. Consisting of bank documents, the evidence will be used in criminal proceedings against high-ranking FIFA officials. http://www.ejpd.admin.ch/ejpd/en/home/aktuell/news/2015/ref_2015-12-30.html
Conmebol HQ raided: http://www.insidethegames.biz/index...-authorities-as-part-of-fifa-corruption-probe
Eureka! Here is the cause of all of Sepp Blatter's problems. He obviously hasn't been wearing carrots to work.
Platini withdraws from race from FIFA presidency (from January 8th): http://www.theweek.co.uk/fifa-corru...chel-platini-come-out-fighting-after-fifa-ban An aside here on Platini, while I still believe the payment was a bribe to not run, from a malfeasance point of view, I see Platini having a considerably stronger case against the charges than Blatter. IF the payment was for services rendered, then Platini didn't do anything wrong. Blatter is still guilty of not reporting that liability to FIFA. Here's a more recent article where FIFA ethics investigators are appealing the 8 year ban and seeking a longer ban on Platini and Blatter. Interesting... http://www.newvision.co.ug/new_vision/news/1414688/fifa-investigators-seek-blatter-platini-bans
The catch being, of course, that if the payment was legitimate then what in Hades is Platini doing waiting so long to request reimbursement? If the payment was for services rendered then FIFA's book keepers were grossly negligent when the actual activity took place and Blatter and company would be even further up the river.
Police in Guatemala have arrested a former head of the country's football federation as part of a major US corruption investigation into the sport's world governing body, Fifa. The suspect, Brayan Jimenez, had been on the run since last month, when the US issued an arrest warrant for 16 Latin American football officials. He was detained at a block of flats in the capital, Guatemala City. His lawyer said he would not fight the extradition request. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-35299194
And now the FBI goes after the banks. http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/29/investing/citigroup-fifa-subpoena/index.html?iid=hp-stack-dom Will be interesting to see where this ends --- anyone thinking passing reforms within FIFA will stop the FBI from following their investigation to the end are sorely mistaken.
It will not end in anything, but maybe the payment of some fines. It's not the first time their bank system have been subject to similar investigations, where after found guilty, were only charged with fines, with no one arrested over it. Unfortunately, the US dept.of Justice, uses a diferent "set of eyes", where they see things "diferent", when it gets to their own banking system and how they relate to criminal activity, or maybe, how they might relate to their own government and/or authorities.
While true, it will likely be a hefty fine and/or result in Citi "magically" finding additional transactions that could result in additional arrests.
Agreed This. Note --- they have some evidence they've found that links Citi and other banks to nefarious activities, now they go digging within those banks and as part of the overall deal of people not going to jail, they look for other threads to pull on. The FBI hopefully even has an idea of where they want to find more info. But this too will take time.
It will end in nothing because there is most likely nothing. I doubt Citibank had an inkling that CONMEBOL or CONCACAF were so corrupt. Probably didn't even know who they were and what they did. Which reminds me. There is a reason why the only bank willing to work with CONCACAF needed contractual assurances that they will be squeaky clean. I wouldn't wonder if both FIFA and other nations will have problems moving money in the US. Probably another strike against a 2026 cup in the US.
Citibank has also been linked in moving money for the taliban leaders, Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, all sort of drug lords (Pablo Escobar, among others), Saddam Hussein, Manuel Noriega, Augusto Pinochet, and of course their biggest asset, which are lots of corrupt high positioned politicians (from lots of countries, but specially from the same USA), whom of course will seek that nothing so bad happens to them. You think, they really cared that much about how corrupt some football officials, could be ?....... All they saw was the money they were moving, and as long as it was useful for buying things and they get to keep a part of it, it will always be good for them, making business .
This isn't a valid argument. US banks are legally required to monitor activities in their bank for money laundering and large banks have automated system that flag transaction that are questionable for manual review. The DoJ can either get them for not having adequate monitoring, or for intentionally turning a blind eye.. Either way, bad for Citibank.
Banks flagging suspicious transactions has only been in effect for the past 15 years if I'm not mistaken
I think the problem with this logic is the supposition that an automated system is all that smart. I say this with a rather well grounded background in artificial intelligence. I don't believe those systems would be set up to really detect this particular type of corruption. It's a sporting organization. It's way different than the typical avenues of corruption.
The detection programs don't care about the type of organization the transactions are originating from, or, at least, they shouldn't or else the bank's fraud detection has a glaring and easily exploited hole. They also don't care if the person/organization is well known. Nothing the CONCACAF and CONMEBOL officials are accused of are unique to sports organizations and they seem to have followed the well worn path of money laundering and bribery.
From today's NY Times: Mr. Trujillo, the 42nd defendantin the United States’ continuing FIFA case, pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy. ... Mr. Trujillo admitted to paying bribes, on behalf of several sports marketing companies and his own business, to officials of FIFA, Concacaf — soccer’s governing body for North America, Central America and the Caribbean — and four soccer federations in Central America and the Caribbean. Also on Tuesday, Rafael Esquivel, a FIFA official from Venezuela charged by the United States, appeared in federal court in Brooklyn and pleaded not guilty to the corruption charges against him. Full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/09/s...pleads-guilty-in-us-corruption-case.html?_r=0
AND -- From Fortune - http://fortune.com/2016/03/09/the-fifa-corruption-probe-just-reached-frances-soccer-hq/ Authorities searched the offices of France’s soccer federation and seized documents to help a Swiss investigation into former FIFA President Sepp Blatter, Switzerland’s prosecutor said on Wednesday. The operation, carried out a day earlier, was linked to a 2 million Swiss franc ($2 million) payment to France’s Michel Platini at the heart of proceedings against Blatter, Switzerland’s Office of the Attorney General (OAG) said.
In the article I saw about the raid on the French FA, Blatter said something like, he doesn't know why they're investigating a verbal contract between him and Platini. I just think the notion of a 2 million Euro verbal contract is laughable on its face.
I'm guessing it's part of his bargaining to avoid further jail if possible. Another canary to sing to the Feds, allowing them to put more of this soap opera to bed. As more and more of the money becomes definitively accounted for, the clarity of the scheming will eventually allow us to understand the how and why of corruption within CONCACAF and, to a degree, CONMEBOL and FIFA. I can't wait to read the books that will come out of all this.