Authorities take actions over US properties caught up in Fifa's scandal

Authorities take action over more than a dozen homes they say were bought by bribery or illicit funds.

 

 One of the properties listed in the indictment is an apartment that overlooks Miami's Biscayne Bay. Photo / Getty Images

The officials and company executives caught up in the corruption investigation into Fifa built illicit property empires that included sites ranging from a palatial-style estate in Georgia to a luxury apartment overlooking Biscayne Bay in Miami, United States prosecutors claim.
More than a dozen homes, many registered to offshore companies, are alleged by United States authorities to have been either obtained illegally or bought using illicit funds. In one case a senior Fifa official is said to have obtained property in the US using a bribe transferred to him specifically for that purpose.
The properties include a six-bedroom detached house in Loganville, Georgia, owned by Jeffrey Webb, Fifa vice-president and president of the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association of Football (Concacaf).
The home, worth an estimated US$940,000 ($1.3 million), was built in 2007 in a palatial style, with ornate pillars, large balconies and a sweeping exterior staircase.

It includes a pool which prosecutors allege was funded with bribe money. Another of Webb's properties is held by Kosson Properties, a firm believed to have been set up by Costas Takkas, a British official who acted as his attache as Concacaf president.
An indictment filed in the US alleges that the funds for the property came from a bribe paid by Traffic Sports USA, a sports marketing company seeking lucrative commercial rights contracts with Fifa.
The money was allegedly wired to Takkas, who transferred a portion to an account in his name in Miami, before transferring funds to a swimming pool builder in Georgia, where Webb was installing a pool at his Loganville home.
"Takkas transferred another portion of the funds directly from his Kosson Ventures account at Fidelity Bank in the Cayman Islands to SunTrust Bank in Georgia for Webb's benefit in connection with Webb's purchase of other real estate in Stone Mountain, Georgia," the indictment states.
The indictment names two properties in Stone Mountain, both of which are registered in the name of Kosson Properties.
One, worth an estimated US$142,000, is a large four-bedroom home spanning 264sq m, while the other is a three-bedroom property about 8km away.
The properties identified by the US authorities also include a flat worth an estimated US$1.57 million overlooking Biscayne Bay. It is owned by Aaron Davidson, 44, the president of Traffic Sports, who is one of four sports marketing executives charged by US prosecutors.
The properties named in the indictment also include three Florida homes that British newspaper the Daily Telegraph has linked to Rafael Esquivel, 68, the president of the Venezuelan football federation.
They are collectively worth an estimated US$483,000.
Separately, Eduardo Li, 56, a Fifa executive committee member from Costa Rica also arrested in Zurich, owns a home in Aventura, Florida, bought for US$545,000 in 2007, as well as a property in one of the most expensive areas of his home country.
One of the largest property empires, however, appears to have been built by Jack Warner, the former Fifa vice-president, and his family. Like Li's properties, though, these do not appear to be listed in the indictment as specifically funded by bribes and therefore vulnerable to seizure.
Warner, 72, who lives in a large detached house in Trinidad, is accused of receiving US$1 million in bribes. Between them his two sons own at least a dozen properties, mainly in Miami.

Hot property

• Indictment lists homes allegedly connected to the Fifa corruption scandal.
• Includes six-bedroom home in Georgia belonging to vice-president Jeffrey Webb.
• US$1.57 ($2.20 million) Miami apartment belonging to sports executive also named in charge.
• If homes bought illegally or with illicit funds, they could be seized by the US.