I wonder if they received bribes from Coca Cola.
Either way, what's this gonna do for the brazilian slums and qatar workers?
Either way, what's this gonna do for the brazilian slums and qatar workers?
FIFA corruption scandal thread
In a Five-Star Setting, FIFA Officials Are Arrested, the Swiss Way
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/s...ifa-officials-are-arrested-the-swiss-way.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/s...ifa-officials-are-arrested-the-swiss-way.html
I may have fukked that title change. I thought I read that FBI was behind this but they simply had an informant in FIFA. I'll remove that part lol.What I'm I seeing 'FBI prosecution' how can this be
Fifa arrests: how a well-placed insider and stashed cash helped US build case
Loretta Lynch spent years on the case, in which prosecutors turned to tactics used to fight organised crime – and a scooter chase paved the way
Chuck Blazer attends the 61st FIFA congress at the Hallenstadion in Zurich in 2011. Photograph: Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters
Dan Roberts in Washington
@RobertsDan
Wednesday 27 May 201520.05 BSTLast modified on Thursday 28 May 201507.44 BST
The long arm of American law enforcement first caught up with what US attorney general Loretta Lynch calls international football’s “rampant, systemic and deep-rooted” corruption racket while chasing a mobility scooter down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.
Inside the scooter was Chuck Blazer, a suburban soccer dad who had risen near to the top of the sport’s governing body, Fifa, and by 2011 was living the high life in two apartments above Fifa’s regional office in nearby Trump Tower: one for him and one, reputedly, for his cats.
Behind him were agents from the US Internal Revenue Service and FBI who called out Blazer’s name and wanted to know why he had not paid tax on his share of $151m of alleged bribes and kickbacks said to have been sloshing through Fifa’s hands for two generations.
“We can take you away in handcuffs now, or you can cooperate,” said one of two agents, according to a vivid account of the incident first published by the New York Daily News last November.
Just how cooperative Blazer proved only became apparent on Wednesday, as plainclothed Swiss police acting on behalf of the FBI burst into the Baur au Lac hotel in Zurich at dawn to arrest seven other Fifa officials and reveal charges against seven further defendants.
The officials were led out of the exclusive venue used for Fifa committee meetings behind white sheets held up by hotel staff to protect them from waiting cameras. But a similar raid was already under way at the Miami headquarters of Fifa’s North American branch and no amount of money could now hide the scale of what of IRS chief Richard Weber later claimed before a press conference in New York was “the World Cup of fraud”.
Allegations of corruption and kickbacks have swirled around Fifa for decades, and the story now emerging from US prosecutors suggests they used tried-and-tested techniques designed to tackle organised crime to roll up the alleged conspiracy by leaning on witnesses to cooperate.
The detailed indictment against Blazer unsealed on Wednesday revealed they had assembled specific allegations of his involvement in bribes related to the selection of World Cup host countries going back to the early 1990s.
Facing a 20-year jail sentence just for the most serious charge of racketeering, Blazer agreed to plead guilty to a total of 10 counts – including wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering, income tax and banking offences – in the hope of more lenient treatment.
Though unconfirmed by prosecutors this week, the Daily News report suggests Blazer even agreed to secretly record future meetings with Fifa officials, allegedly carrying a recording device hidden in a keyring to London’s May Fair hotel during the 2012 Olympic Games.
But Blazer was not the only big fish to succumb to threats from prosecutors. The two adult children of Jack Warner, a former Fifa regional president and Trinidad and Tobago politician charged under this week’s indictment, were caught in equally colourful circumstances.
Unsealed charges against Daryan and Daryll Warner, who have both pleaded guilty to a variety of fraud and money laundering charges, reveal how their involvement in processing $600,000 in cash from alleged Fifa bribes was picked up in the US banking system.
Flight records and bank surveillance cameras show Daryan flying from Port of Spain airport in Trinidad to Miami and New York, where he made a series of deposits of €7,000 (currently $7,600) each into various US bank accounts.
The sum was designed to fit below the $10,000 limit imposed by banks – above which customers are required to show identification – but Daryan seemingly had not factored in the fluctuating exchange rate and was forced to ask a bank teller for €500 (currently $544) back when she demanded to see his driving licence.
The indictment reveals similar cash-ferrying trips by Daryll Warner, a US citizen, from Frankfurt to Miami. According tolocal press reports in Trinidad, he also raised the suspicion of American tax investigators by buying Florida apartments for cash.
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US attorney general Loretta Lynch speaks while standing with FBI director James Comey, during a press conference about the Fifa arrests. Photograph: Justin Lane/EPA
The link between the Warner brothers and their father’s alleged involvement in the wider Fifa conspiracy remains to be proved, but the pursuit by US investigators over the past four years has not gone unnoticed.
“Everybody knows that in the US there is an investigation,” Fifa president Sepp Blatter told reporters last week, according to Associated Press.
Blatter has not been charged in any of the current indictments and denied he was avoiding travelling to the United States for fear of arrest, but ESPN reports say he has not entered the country since 2011.
The extensive reach of the US legal system is well known, but an international investigation on this scale is nonetheless unprecedented and represents a bold move by Attorney General Lynch, who was only confirmed by the US Senate a few weeks ago.
But, according to the newly released court filings, Lynch has been involved in the investigation for years – working on it in her capacity as US district attorney before her recent promotion by President Obama.
Administration officials are also adamant that the extensive links to US businesses, banks and sports organisations give them a legitimate remit to pursue allegations that defied repeated internal probes, journalistic investigations and national complaints in the past.
“They did this over and over, year after year, tournament after tournament,” Lynch said during Wednesday’s press conference, arguing the that “bribe money takes soccer fields and balls away from kids” in developing countries who were meant to be the recipients of Fifa marketing and television revenues.
Prosecutors allege that up to a third of the revenues from one US football tournament alone were diverted to lining the pockets of corrupt officials and that everything from the selection of venues to the election of Fifa officials was tainted by bribery.
But the prosecution also represents a political decision that an international sport that has captivated a generation of US players should no longer be seen as above the law.
“This may be the way things are,” concluded FBI director James Comey, “but this is not the way things have to be.”
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
So can someone give me the super short version of what happened?
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
They didn't obey American laws and were indicted because of it.
the corrupt jews who control american sports and media are jealous of the money could get out of soccer. they sent a plants to soccer to take it from blatter.
to make matters better or worse my mans blatter has been using his platform to get israel out of world soccer for what they're doing to the palestinians.
i'm riding with you know who on this one
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Vladimir Putin Denounces U.S. Over FIFA Arrests
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/29/sports/vladimir-putin-fifa-corruption-soccer.html
I guess Russia is guilty
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/29/sports/vladimir-putin-fifa-corruption-soccer.html
I guess Russia is guilty
ill
Superstar
Vladimir Putin Denounces U.S. Over FIFA Arrests
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/29/sports/vladimir-putin-fifa-corruption-soccer.html
I guess Russia is guilty
Bribery is legal and socially acceptable in most of the world outside of the US. I'm actually surprised they got arrested over international bribery. Some of the bribes must have happened on US soil for them to charge FIFA.
ill
Superstar
I didn't think FIFA was a US entity though. Quick google shows they were founded in France. Maybe they incorporated in the US as well? Not sure but thats a slippery slope if the US is entitled to charge people for international bribery outside of its territory.
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
I'm sure FIFA is incorporated regionally or perhaps even on a country to country basis that doesn't matter though. In theory say you're wiring money and it interacts with a US bank at some point then that would be grounds even. There's another set of laws that overlap or are congruent that I can't remember. Wiki breaks it down pretty well. Maybe @Domingo Halliburton or @Futuristic Eskimo can explain it well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Corrupt_Practices_Act
Edit: How Watergate helps explain how the U.S. can prosecute FIFA officials
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...ain-how-the-u-s-can-prosecute-fifa-officials/
Edit:
"Why is it that the United States can prosecute non-citizens who work for an organization located in Switzerland and who are accused of taking bribes abroad? Philip Bump explains that there are U.S. statutes that that can target foreign citizens for crimes committed abroad as long as these foreign citizens have some ties to the United States. An especially important legal instrument is the 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). The Justice Department (for criminal investigations) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) frequently use this law: For instance, the law was used to levy heavy fines against German companies, registered with the New York Stock Exchange, that bribed foreign government officials to win contracts".
"A game-changer was the adoption of a 1997 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Convention in which other wealthier countries also committed to outlaw bribing foreign government officials. Many countries still often do not enforce the laws they have on the books. Yet, the fact that the activity is now illegal in most wealthy democracies allows for more prosecutorial cooperation, which is essential in complex bribery investigations".
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