July 4 – In an operation dubbed Jules Rimet, police in Brazil have arrested 11 people and broken up an international gang that was apparently involved in the illegal sale of World Cup tickets.
The scheme is said to have earned the gang as much as $90 million and could have been operating for four different World Cups.
Some of the tickets seized were reportedly meant for sponsors, while others had been allocated to Brazil team officials.
Jules Rimet was a former president of FIFA and initiated the World Cup tournament. The original trophy was named after him.
According to Brazilian reports, phone calls of the alleged ring-leader, a French-Algerian identified as Mohamadou Fofana, were monitored over a period of three months. It has been suggested as many as 1,000 tickets for each of the World Cup’s 64 matches may be involved in the scam, which is believe to have encompassed three previous editions dating back to the 2002 finals.
A police spokesman said Fofana “had free access to restricted FIFA areas” and added: “After his arrest we realised there was someone above him from FIFA with an intermediary at (official ticket agency) Match Hospitality. We want to identify the last link in the chain, from the ticket touts at the stadiums, right through to those who are above Lamine Fofona and who passed the tickets on to him.”
Thierry Weil, FIFA’s Marketing Director and responsible for Ticketing at FIFA, said in statement: “With regard to ‘Operation Jules Rimet’, FIFA is fully supporting the local authorities in their investigations into ticket scalping and any illegal sale of FIFA World Cup tickets. FIFA’s ticketing experts will tomorrow (Friday, 4 July 2014) analyse the seized tickets in order to validate them as well as to assist the authorities in identifying the source of the tickets and track down the channels of those tickets. FIFA and the local authorities will ensure that any violations will be sanctioned accordingly.
“FIFA takes a firm stance against any form of violation of the ticketing regulations and is very pleased with the great collaboration with the security authorities in our joint efforts to clamp down any unauthorised ticket sales.”
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