By Andrew Warshaw in Zurich
September 14 – Declaring that “no individual is above the law”, the US prosecutor whose revelations brought FIFA to its knees and led in part to Sepp Blatter’s decision to step down as president, says more criminal charges are expected to be brought and more arrests made.
Attorney general Loretta Lynch (pictured right), whose investigation has already snared 14 senior football-related and marketing officials in what US justice authorities have described as “World Cup of fraud” stretching back two decades and involving $150 million, declined to confirm or deny whether Blatter himself was under investigation but said the probe was being widened.
In her first news conference since the announcement of that stunning 47-count indictment into money-laundering and racketeering and the infamous dawn raid on the luxury downtown Zurich hotel just before the FIFA Congress that re-elected Blatter at the end of May, Lynch confirmed that three of the defendants had already appeared in court in New York while a further 10 were still awaiting extradition.
But she revealed, tellingly: “Our investigation remains active and ongoing and has expanded since May. The scope is not limited. We do anticipate pursuing additional changes against individuals and entities.”
Lynch, speaking on the fringes of the International Association of Prosecutors conference attended by some 500 leading lawyers from across the globe, said she was confident all those awaiting extradition would ultimately be brought to the United States to face trial. Of the seven officials arrested in Zurich, only Jeffrey Webb, the former CONCACAF president from the Cayman Islands, has so far agreed to be extradited and is currently on bail at his home in Georgia having pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him.
Security at the Renaissance hotel – ironically the very same place where Webb gave his final tub-thumping anti-corruption media briefing before he himself was arrested – was watertight with a sniffer dog examining every piece of equipment belonging to reporters and photographers.
Lynch said the US authorities could theoretically convict individuals in absentia “if they choose to remain a fugitive ” but that she was “very hopeful” all those so far charged would be taken to the US to face trial at the same time.
Her comments, based on new evidence, will send a shiver down the spines of football executives so far outside the investigation but who now could find themselves named in the next wave of arrests.
The city chosen for Lynch’s appearance, a few kilometres from FIFA hq, could hardly have been more appropriate as she warned about the desperate need for reform. “The problem of corruption in soccer is global and we will remain vigilant. One hallmark has guided our work: all individuals involved in soccer, this beloved sport through which we teach sportsmanship, integrity and fair play, must be committed to reform and compliance with the rule of law.
“To anyone who seeks to live in the past, this global response sends a clear message: You are on the wrong side of progress and do a disserve to the integrity of this wonderful sport.”
“We have received collaboration and co-operation from a number of different sources and countries. For individuals who have a choice to return soccer to its old ways of corruption or to move into the way soccer should be run we hope they chose the latter path.”
Lynch’s Swiss counterpart Michael Lauber,whose department is conducting a separate probe into possible misconduct surrounding the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bid process, disclosed 121 bank accounts had now been brought to the attention of the Swiss justice authorities.
Lauber disclosed the Swiss investigation had “not even reached the halftime break” and, remarkably, revealed that 11 terrabytes of data had now been seized from Fifa and that even apartments in the Swiss Alps had been targeted as potentially suspect financial assets. “We have a lot of facts from house searches and documents we have received,” he told the 150 reporters present. “I can’t tell you to whom these flats belong.”
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