June 22 – Increasing details are being leaked of the scale of the money laundering by South American confederation CONMEBOL’s former president Nicolás Leoz, who seamlessly moved millions from the confederation’s accounts to his personal accounts and business interests.
Spanish newspaper Diario AS has published an interview with a former CONMEBOL insider – ‘Confidant X’ – who worked for the confederation for 10 years during Leoz’s 1986-2013 presidency.
Paraguayan Leoz is currently under house arrest at his Luque (Asunción) estate fighting extradition to the US.
The interview with ‘Confidant X’ provides documents that prove large transfers of money were frequent, both in dollars and in Paraguyan guaranties, and that puts the South American confederation at the epicentre of the corruption, “with money arriving from all over the world, from Tokyo to New York, and … ending up in the accounts of its leaders in Paraguay, Brazil, the United States or Panama.
“Sometimes, to massage operations, they used their relatives as a front. Dr. Leoz, with his wife, María Clemencia; his assistants did something similar,” said ‘Confidant X’.
One example is of $1.5m “which the then (in 2000) president of the Japan Football Federation, Ken Naganuma, who is now deceased, sent to CONMEBOL to be distributed among the ten federations due to the South American countries’ vote for South Korea and Japan’s candidature for the 2002 World Cup,” says ‘Confidant X’.
“But that million and a half was distributed in another way: Leoz deposited $1.2m into his account; $200,000 USD for Eduardo de Luca, the CONMEBOL general secretary, and $100,000 USD for Zorana Dannis, the confederation’s link with FIFA.” A Colombian with an office in the US.
The $1.2 million was sent to a CONMEBOL account, but Leoz diverted it to his personal account (1596/2 of the bank Banco do Brasil de Asunción). The other two bankers’ drafts ended up in Northern Trust International Bank (New York) and in an office of Citibank in New Jersey, both in the USA.
This was “one of the operations, but there were many more and not all of them passed through my hands”. Confidant X explains that these practices “were common and followed”, until the point that it was almost impossible to separate Leoz’s private accounts from those of CONMEBOL itself.
Confidant X told Diario AS: “At CONMEBOL everybody knew what was going on, or at least they suspected it. But that didn’t stop us having a social life. We even took part in football tournaments. I played in several. They were usually held at Marcelo Toyotoshi’s ranch, the owner of Toyota in Paraguay. He was close to the directors of the South American federation and Toyota sponsored the Copa Libertadores. His is one of the big fortunes in the Americas.
“I played in games there and there were people like the former president of the Chilean federation or Juan Ángel Napout, the president of CONMEBOL, who was Leoz’s man and was the president of Cerro Porteño. We played football and then had a roast. It all looked perfectly normal.”
During his reign at CONMEBOL Leoz built a huge portfolio of assets including dozens of ranches, cars, other properties and even whole neighbourhoods, like Villa Morra, near Herrera. “To launder money they bought whole buildings, ranches and cars. In Leoz’s case, he shared practically everything with his wife, María Clemencia,” said Confidant X.
And it was a lot of money. “It was enough to buy pretty much anything one could want,” says Confidant X, who talks about a “fat split, of $10 million (he displays the receipt for that amount) that was deposited in CONMEBOL’s bank account, number 1280/7, and from which money was taken out on a regular basis and put in his personal account, number 1596/2 at the Bank of Brazil. Those $10 million came from a company called TT Sports Marketing in the US, and were transferred to Paraguay by the Brazilian American Merchant Bank in New York.” The US Attorney General is now looking into the origins of that money.
As well as buying the Bank of Brazil building in October 1998 for $953,000, AS Diario has seen documents showing purchases of millions of guaranis and dollars for almost 50 properties in the country.
A key figure in the CONMEBOL structure was Leoz’s personal secretary, Irmina Ortiz de Ezcurra, who ended up with a flotilla of 14 cars as well as one of the most opulent houses in Asuncion: “A huge palace, bigger than the most impressive one you can imagine in Europe,” says Confidant X.
She was vital to the scam because “she knew the workings of the federation and pulled the strings of the organisation.” She was Leoz’s trusted lieutenant. “She worked with many banks in the country, where she moved the money around in guaranis. But she also made deposits in dollars in Panama, in her sister’s name.”
Leoz resigned from his positions at FIFA and CONMEBOL in April 2013 “for health and personal reasons”.
The AS Diario articles can be viewed at http://as.com/diarioas/2015/06/21/english/1434876853_369702.html
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1735874392labto1735874392ofdlr1735874392owedi1735874392sni@n1735874392osloh1735874392cin.l1735874392uap1735874392