FIFA corruption crackdown continues

It was deja vu for the corruption-riddled FIFA as indictments were issued for 16 officials including CONCACAF acting president Alfredo Hawit who was held yesterday in a US Department of Justice early morning swoop in Switzerland.

The predawn exercise mirrored that of May earlier this year where other FIFA honchos including previous CONCACAF boss Jeffrey Webb were detained by the FBI in a covert operation that also involved Swiss authorities.

Former CONCACAF boss and ex-FIFA vice-president Jack Warner is also on the wanted list by the FBI to face similar charges but is currently battling extradition in Trinidad after TT AG Faris Al-Rawi gave the all-clear for him to depart. 

The ex FIFA bigwig is also challenging the Extradition Order issued by the USA, saying it goes against local extradition laws. 

The 16 new defendants arrested yesterday included nine CONMEBOL officials and seven high ranking members from CONCACAF such as former President of the Republic of Honduras Rafael Callejas; Hector Trujillo, a judge at the Guatemala Constitutional Court; Ariel Alvarado (Panama Federation president); Brayan Jiminez (head of Guatemala Federation); Rafael Salguero (ex-Guatemala football head) and Reynaldo Vasquez (former El Salvador football boss). 

US Attorney General Loretta E Lynch, in an address to the media yesterday, revealed that Webb was among eight officials arrested in May who have pleaded guilty, forfeiting close to US$200 million. 

She also sounded a warning to other FIFA officials that her country would be proactive in bringing other FIFA members alleged to have been involved in illicit activities to justice. 

“The Department of Justice is committed to ending the rampant corruption we have alleged amidst the leadership of international soccer – not only because of the scale of the schemes, or the brazenness and breadth of the operation required to sustain such corruption, but also because of the affront to international principles that this behaviour represents,” said Attorney General Lynch.

“The message from this announcement should be clear to every culpable individual who remains in the shadows, hoping to evade our investigation: You will not wait us out. You will not escape our focus.” As news of the latest FIFA scandal rocked the football world yesterday, former TT FA president Raymond Tim Kee was left struggling to find words when told by Newsday about the latest developments. 

“Alfredo? Alfredo was arrested? You kidding me. Wow,” he said, taking a few seconds to come to grips with what transpired. 

“Well I am really thoroughly surprised to hear that. Those are all men with whom I would have dealt with over the years and of course held them in the high esteem. I am really disappointed to hear Alfredo was in that. We spoke about that (corruption) after all the things (May arrests) started - Alfredo and I - and I am disappointed to hear that. 

“He was one of those persons I held respect for. He was always kind of idealistic in some of the things he said and we shared (sentiments) about not doing crooked, wrong things. At the other hand, I never demonstrated any kind of looseness so nobody might take the chance to tell me anything.” Tim Kee noted though that he is in support of the clean-up operation of football’s governing body as “football deserves clean, good governance because too many lives depend on it and it brings joy and happiness to so many homes and lives.”

Asked how CONCACAF and FIFA can purge itself from the scourge of corruption, Tim Kee was frank: “Once you go in and find anything out of sorts, you have to go right down deep and get to the root and clean it or destroy it and start afresh. When you clean and tweak here and there you will be missing the root and the root will be dormant... 

It is good (cleaning FIFA), I am saddened but so long as you identify an ailment, you have a responsibility to dig deep and clean from the root.” He noted that the TT FA constitution implemented by him which stresses good governance and democracy was given rave reviews by FIFA’s representative and believes other CONCACAF territories and even FIFA can adopt it and lay the groundwork for a positive way forward. 

Present head of the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TT FA) David John-Williams was coy however to speak on the arrest of the past and present FIFA officials given he is just four days into his post. 

“I can’t really comment much on that. I just saw it on the news this morning so I don’t know the circumstances but all I can say is it’s unfortunate. I think the problems in football worldwide is well documented. Whichever administration is newly elected whether its Trinidad, Grenada, Barbados or CONCACAF they will be under tremendous scrutiny. The problems are well documented so we just have to deal with it. It’s too early in my tenure to comment on that. I just want to see how it unfolds,” he said.

RELATED NEWS

IT'S A FAKE
By JADA LOUTOO (Newsday).

A LETTER purportedly penned by United States’ Democratic presidential candidate, Vermont Senator Bernard “Bernie” Sanders, to former US Attorney General Eric Holder, calling for an investigation by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) into an allegation that former prime minister and current Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar received US$20 million from former Cconcacaf president Jeff Webb, is a fake.

The letter was published in this week’s edition of the Sunshine Newspaper, a weekly newspaper owned by former FIFA vice-president, former Government Minister and former United National Congress (UNC) member Jack Warner. The Sunshine’s publication which hit newsstands on Wednesday, is headlined “US Senator wants probe into Kamla’s alleged TT$125 Million Bank Account.” But in an interview with Newsday yesterday, Senator Sander’s deputy communications director and digital director Josh Miller- Lewis said the letter did not come from the Senator’s office. 

“That letter is fake,” Miller-Lewis emphasised. He told Newsday that the Senator’s office found out about the publication and the purported letter only on Wednesday. 

“In terms of background, we saw it only yesterday. I can tell you that it didn’t come from our office,” Miller-Lewis said. The US Senator, he added, and his advisers have not yet decided on what course of action to take. “As I said, we found out about it only yesterday so no decision has been taken on what the Senator intends to do,” Miller-Lewis told Newsday in a telephone interview late yesterday. 

Senator Sanders, who became a Democrat this year, is the longest- serving independent in US Congressional history. He has also been the ranking minority member on the US Senate Budget Committee since January and is a candidate for President of the United States in the 2016 presidential election. 

Contacted for comment yesterday, Persad-Bissessar said she was “most happy to have it confirmed”, that the letter published in Warner’s newspaper, was a fake. 

“I knew all along it was fake,” she said. She also added that the issue was now in her lawyers’ hands. 

Also yesterday, Public Affairs Officer at the United States Embassy in Port-of-Spain, Stephen Weeks, when asked about the purported letter, said he could shed no light on it. In the letter, which was undated, Sanders purportedly expressed concern to then US AG Holder - who demitted office in April - to investigate what was described as “a potential instance of corporate fraud-behaviour and take appropriate action if the investigation yields evidence of wrongdoing.” The letter quoted an eightmonth long investigation by journalists at the New York Times, on the FIFA scandal involving Warner. 

Checks on the Times’ website for publication of the alleged investigation uncovered nothing. 

The letter went on to detail the former prime minister being in receipt of US$20 million from an account at First Caribbean International invested in RBS Securities, Japan registered to Jeffery Webb, former Concacaf president who last month pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy. 

FALSE CLAIM OF $M FOR KAMLA Webb, on November 23, pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy, three counts of wire fraud conspiracy and three counts of money laundering conspiracy. As part of his plea, Webb agreed to forfeit more than US$6.7 million. 

Also yesterday, the current US Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced that 16 additional persons were indicted on a 92-count superseding indictment, unsealed yesterday, in the Federal Court in Brooklyn, New York, for racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracies, among other offences, in connection with their participation in a 24- year scheme to enrich themselves through the corruption of international soccer. 

The superseding indictment also includes additional charges for seven of the defendants, still pending extradition following the return of the original indictment last May. The guilty pleas of eight defendants – including Webb – were also announced yesterday. 

The new defendants include high-ranking officials of FIFA. 

According to Lynch, the new charges brought the total number of individuals and entities charged to date, to 41. Of those, 12 individuals and two sports marketing companies have already been convicted as a result of the ongoing investigation. The convicted defendants have agreed to pay more than US$190 million in forfeiture. In addition, more than US$100 million has been restrained in the United States and abroad, in connection with the alleged criminal activity. 

The United States has issued mutual legal assistance requests seeking the restraint of assets located in 13 countries around the world. Warner was indicted last May by a US grand jury on 12 charges of wire fraud, racketeering and money laundering over an escalating scandal at FIFA, football`s world governing body. 

On July 23 last, US authorities asked for Warner, former Concacaf head to be extradited to face the charges. 

Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi in September signed the authority to proceed giving the go ahead to commence extradition proceedings, but this has since been challenged by Warner. The former FIFA vice president and Webb’s predecessor at Concacaf, appears before a high court judge this morning to seek permission to have the AG’s decision as well as the US order for extradition, challenged by the courts.