Additional reports on suspicious World Cup transactions come after Michel Platini, French president of European football’s governing body, lost his appeal to lift FIFA's 90-day ban on Friday.
Keystone
The Swiss Attorney General's Office said on Monday that 133 reports of suspicious financial activity linked to FIFA’s decisions to let Russia and Qatar host the 2018 and 2022 World Cup finals are being investigated.
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This is up from the 103 reports of suspicious transactions related to the world football governing body’s allocation of the World Cup that were reported in August.
In an email to Reuters, an Attorney General spokeswoman said that the suspicious activity reports came from the Swiss Federal Office of Police’s (FEDPOL) Money Laundering Reporting Office Switzerland (MROS).
“These reports are related to the ongoing criminal proceedings around the allocation of the Football World Cup 2018 and 2022,” she said.
Russia and Qatar have denied any wrongdoing.
Bank investigation
US federal prosecutors are conducting a parallel investigation into FIFA’s financial conduct, and have indicted 27 soccer officials over multimillion-dollar bribery schemes for soccer marketing and broadcast rights. Twelve people and two sports marketing companies have been convicted.
The US investigation is also looking into the flow of suspicious money through the banking system.
Acting under US requests for legal assistance, Swiss justice officials have agreed to share bank information with US prosecutors in five cases, a spokesman for the Federal Office of Justice in Bern told Reuters.
No information has changed hands yet, because account holders have appealed. The names of the account holders, the banks involved and the amount of money frozen in the probe have not been released.
US Department of Justice indictments indicate that conspirators made transfers to accounts in at least two Zurich banks: Julius Baer and the Swiss unit of Israel’s Bank Hapoalim BM.
UBS and Credit Suisse say they have received inquiries from authorities concerning their banking relationships to certain people and entities linked to FIFA, and that they are cooperating.
Suspended
FIFA President Sepp Blatter, his deputy Jerome Valcke and European soccer boss Michel Platini have all been suspended by FIFA’s internal ethics committee. None of them has been charged with a crime, and all deny any wrongdoing.
On Friday, Platini lost his appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne to lift the 90-day ban imposed by FIFA.
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Justice department announces more FIFA charges
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The United States Justice Department has announced charges against 16 additional world football officials after further arrests took place on Thursday in Zurich.
Those charged include five current and former members of FIFA’s executive committee, which met later in the day to announce reforms to the world governing body. In total, nearly a dozen people who have served on that committee have now been charged with corruption.
“The betrayal of trust that is set forth here is truly outrageous,” Lynch said of the charges against FIFA executives.
Among those charged on Thursday were Marco Polo del Nero, a Brazilian who served on the executive committee from 2012 until last week; Rafael Salguero, a Guatemalan who left the executive committee in May; former South American confederation secretary general Eduardo Deluca; former Peru soccer federation president Manuel Burga; and current Bolivian soccer president Carlos Chaves, already jailed in his own country.
Lynch also said the United States would seek to extradite Juan Angel Napout of Paraguay and Alfredo Hawit of Honduras following their arrests in Zurich Thursday morning at the Baur au Lac hotel.
She continued that eight defendants in the corruption investigation have now plead guilty to the charges.
Lynch also thanked Swiss authorities who she said had been “instrumental” in the ongoing investigation.
More to follow.
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The Lausanne-based court said on Friday its three-man panel of judges was unanimous in ruling against the FIFA presidential hopeful. The 90-day ban “does not cause irreparable harm to Michel Platini at this point in time”, the court said in a statement. Platini hoped to be allowed to attend the 2016 European Championship draw in…
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Napout, who is from Paraguay and president of the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL), agreed to be extradited at a police hearing on Tuesday. He was arrested along with Alfredo Hawit of Honduras, acting president of the North and Central American and Caribbean confederation (CONCACAF), in a pre-dawn police raid at the Baur au Lac…
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