May 9, 2016
U.S. authorities investigating corruption in world soccer have gained the cooperation of a Swiss banker, according to people familiar with the matter, leading their probe closer to financial institutions that prosecutors have said were used to move bribe money.
Helping prosecutors is Jorge Arzuaga, a former private banker to a sports marketing executive who admitted to bribing soccer officials, five people familiar with the matter said. Although the U.S. has already received assistance from soccer officials and sports marketers caught up in the scandal, Arzuaga is the first banker to emerge as a cooperator in the investigation into a decades-long scheme of bribery and kickbacks to influence the awarding of media and marketing rights to tournaments in the Americas.
Even though several former officials of FIFA have been implicated in the bribery schemes, U.S. prosecutors have depicted the group as the victim of the corruption scandal that removed most of its leadership. Prosecutors say soccer officials took nearly $200 million in bribes from sports marketing executives in the Americas seeking media and marketing rights to tournaments.
In the latest stage of the case, investigators are collecting banking records from around the world, a slow process involving mutual legal assistance treaties with countries like Switzerland. They are also pressing bankers like Arzuaga for information, along with many of the people who pleaded guilty, including Jose Margulies, a Brazilian middleman and former sports broadcasting executive, according to three other people familiar with the matter. Margulies admitted paying bribes for almost a quarter century.