U.S. Department of Justice vs. FIFA: Zurich in Flames, Indictments For All

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > U.S. Department of Justice vs. FIFA: Zurich in Flames, Indictments For All

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

What's he referring to with the 18th of November thing and turning stuff over to the government?

# ¿ May 27, 2015 10:37

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 12:23

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/nine-fifa-officials-and-five-corporate-executives-indicted-racketeering-conspiracy-and

Hmm, wonder if they turned on him.

quote:

The Convicted Individuals and Corporations

The following individuals and corporations previously pleaded guilty under seal:

On July 15, 2013, the defendant Daryll Warner, son of defendant Jack Warner and a former FIFA development officer, waived indictment and pleaded guilty to a two-count information charging him with wire fraud and the structuring of financial transactions.

On Oct. 25, 2013, the defendant Daryan Warner waived indictment and pleaded guilty to a three-count information charging him with wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy and the structuring of financial transactions. Daryan Warner forfeited over $1.1 million around the time of his plea and has agreed to pay a second forfeiture money judgment at the time of sentencing.

# ¿ May 27, 2015 10:43

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

A Winner is Jew posted:

Money and power don't mean poo poo when it's a RICO case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corrupt_Organizations_Act#Famous_cases

Read up on the Key West PD, Michael Milken, Scott W. Rothstein, and AccessHealthSource cases. Those are police departments, major corporations, and/or obscenely rich and powerful people that under normal circumstances would be virtually untouchable under the law except a RICO case basically ruins them.

Well, it's more complicated. It means when the Justice Department wants to go after someone they can, but I don't think the existence of the law makes them go after everyone they could.

# ¿ May 27, 2015 18:23

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

Nelson Mandingo posted:

I like how FIFA's official stance is "we welcome this" because they know they would get immolated in star spangled justice if they fought it.

The problem is selling out these guys only makes it more likely they'll turn on FIFA, though maybe they figured that would happen anyway.

# ¿ May 27, 2015 22:41

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

Their cooperating witnesses are all from the Americas.

# ¿ May 27, 2015 23:11

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

Mechafunkzilla posted:

Yeah, this isn't like when the SEC files a civil suit against a company. If the DOJ is filing charges you are fuuuuuuuucked.

Yeah but these aren't just any defendants. I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of these settled with large fines and no jail time.

# ¿ May 28, 2015 02:23

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

mikemil828 posted:

Let's put it this way, actual American police departments have been convicted under RICO, if they can't expect to beat the charge, no one really can. These guys probably have the best lawyers in the world on speed dial and at least 4 of them have already plead guilty

Pled guilty and got fined. We'll see, I don't doubt the government's capabilities here, just not sure how far it wants to go in making an example of them.

# ¿ May 28, 2015 02:50

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

quote:

The Asian Football Confederation says it still supports Sepp Blatter's bid for another term as FIFA president, and opposes any move to delay Friday's scheduled elections in the wake of a string of corruption arrests of some of the federation's top officials.

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/8d06e110739f4942bcfc3a988dec76ba/soccer-world-shocked-fifa-raids

# ¿ May 28, 2015 05:08

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

He's Swiss, pretty sure they can refuse.

# ¿ May 28, 2015 17:23

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

evilweasel posted:

I didn't see anything in the treaty that gave the right to refuse extradition because the person is a citizen, though I may have missed it.

Right, I may have misinterpreted this

Article 8 provides that the Requested State shall not decline to extradite its nationals unless it has jurisdiction to prosecute them for the acts for which extradition is sought. If extradition is refused because the fugitive is a national of the Requested State, that State shall submit the case for prosecution at the request of the Requesting State.

# ¿ May 28, 2015 18:01

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

Strudel Man posted:

Yeah, they can use wire fraud to nab you. But as a general proposition, the act itself doesn't seem to be illegal at the federal level.

Interestingly, in page 114 of the indictment, they are using the fact that it's illegal under NY law as part of the charges for wire fraud and racketeering.

edit: It's a moot point, but I do wonder if given FIFA's power and that some of its officials also represent their governments, it could violate the FCPA.

Xandu fucked around with this message at 07:11 on May 29, 2015

# ¿ May 29, 2015 07:05

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

Powercrazy posted:

So when this investigation implicates that literally every single team in the EUFA is guilty of the same charges what happens? Does the corruption become de facto acceptable and then after the head of FIFA gets taken down it just goes back to business as usual?

Call me a cynic, but how is this going to improve anything at all? Without strong oversight and the willingness of countries to "take their ball and go home" from corrupt organizations, we are just swapping one hyper-capitalist organization with another.

Yes, but it'll also probably be less overt going forward, assuming these guys end up in jail for a long time. There'll still be corruption, but probably not literal bags of cash being handed out to delegates for their vote.

# ¿ May 29, 2015 22:04

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

Blinks77 posted:

So, what happens if (when?) Blatter gets arrested?

Does one of the VP's take over? Given the way things are going, what if they've all been arrested as well?

Given the way things are going, he could well stay in charge

There's probably something in FIFA's bylaws about it. Probably a temporary appointment and then a new election.

# ¿ May 29, 2015 22:46

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

He's so hosed

quote:

Federal authorities believe that Sepp Blatter�s top lieutenant at FIFA made $10 million in bank transactions that are central elements of the bribery scandal engulfing international soccer, several law enforcement officials said Monday. The revelation puts the money trail closer to Mr. Blatter, FIFA�s president, than had been previously known.

J�r�me Valcke, the soccer organization�s secretary general, is the unidentified �high-ranking FIFA official� who prosecutors say transferred $10 million in 2008 from FIFA to accounts controlled by another soccer official, Jack Warner, the law enforcement officials said. The payment is a key piece of last week�s indictment accusing Mr. Warner of taking a bribe in exchange for helping South Africa secure the right to host the 2010 World Cup.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/02/s...ibery-case.html

edit: How convenient

quote:

And a spokeswoman for FIFA, Delia Fischer, said the chairman of the finance committee at the time, Julio Grondona, authorized the payment. Mr. Grondona died last year. Ms. Fischer said the payment was �executed in accordance with the Organisation Regulations.�

# ¿ Jun 1, 2015 22:55

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

pentyne posted:

So is FIFA going to outright say "Well we didn't break any of OUR laws so we didn't commit any crimes" as a defense? They're going to implode.

Probably, but I was highlighting the part where they blamed it on the dead guy.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2015 03:52

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

I wonder what changed.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2015 17:52

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Also they're waiting four months for a new election. I wonder if he just wanted to spite Ali a little bit.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2015 17:58

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

Oh man, I would love to seem him pull an Assange and spend his life stuck in some lovely Russian embassy.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2015 20:07

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

ToastyPotato posted:

With something like that Nike bribe, is the issue not that they paid millions for a contract deal (which I assume is normal), but rather HOW they paid for it?

They didn't just pay for the sponsorship, which is obviously totally normal, but that they paid an intermediary millions for arranging it.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2015 21:13

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

Starting on page 74 http://www.justice.gov/opa/file/450211/download

I think the issue is this:

quote:

Co-Conspirator #2 agreed to pay and did pay CoConspirator #11 half of the money he made from the sponsorship deal, totaling in the millions of dollars, as a bribe and kickback.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2015 21:24

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

No, I don't think anyone involved qualifies as a foreign official.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2015 05:49

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

Bip Roberts posted:

Are the 4000 deaths from workers on the stadium projects or from labor in Qatar in general?

Labor in general, it's a bullshit statistic to apply to the World Cup.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2015 17:59

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

They rigged it in exchange for Trinidad's FIFA vote? Warner's not exactly making a lot of sense these days, though.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2015 22:35

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

Morrow posted:

FIFA's communications director has been fired.

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/33099881

This is amazing.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2015 10:06

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

Jonked posted:

In a RICO investigation, the only guy walking away with minimum jail time is going to be the first big fish that turned informant. From my understanding, that spot is already taken by Blazer.

No, because Blazer's knowledge seems to clearly only extend to people from the Americas. They'll need more people to flip to get the big guys.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2015 21:15

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

Blatter was just kidding, guys. He didnt really resign.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2015 17:08

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

http://m.bbc.com/sport/football/33284185

Edit: from the guardian. Maybe he's senile?
"With a typically obtuse flourish, the 79-year-old added: �Only those who know the past can understand the present and shape the future. Or in other words: the ball is round � but only those who come from outer space know the actual dimensions of our sport � For me personally, the museum is a labour of love. But do not get me wrong: I�m not ready for the museum nor for a waxwork yet.�

Xandu fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Jun 26, 2015

# ¿ Jun 26, 2015 17:25

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

New arrests.

quote:

ZURICH � Swiss authorities began a new series of pre-dawn arrests Thursday in the broad investigation, led by United States officials, into corruption in international soccer. More than a dozen people were expected to be charged, law enforcement officials said, nearly doubling the size of an already huge case that has upended FIFA, soccer�s multibillion-dollar governing body.

At least some of the arrests took place at the same luxury hotel where other FIFA officials were arrested in May. As Swiss police arrived at the hotel, the Baur au Lac, at 6 a.m. local time, a hotel manager told visitors in the lobby they had to leave the property because of �an extreme situation.�

The police were targeting current and former senior soccer officials on charges that include racketeering, money laundering and fraud, authorities said. The new charges were expected to hit South and Central American soccer leaders particularly hard, the officials said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/03/sports/fifa-scandal-arrests-in-switzerland.html

# ¿ Dec 3, 2015 06:09

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

Feds just pulled a senior Guatemalan judge off a cruise ship docked in Florida.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/12/0...www.google.com/

# ¿ Dec 4, 2015 19:33

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 12:23

Xandu: Feb 19, 2006; It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am.

Party Plane Jones posted:

Fifa president Sepp Blatter and Uefa boss Michel Platini have been suspended for eight years from all football-related activities following an ethics investigation (he's still FIFA president however).

I like how the fine for an 1.3m payment isn't even 6 figures.

# ¿ Dec 21, 2015 21:14

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > U.S. Department of Justice vs. FIFA: Zurich in Flames, Indictments For All