Bank Hapoalim agreed to pay more than $30 million over its part in a scheme to launder bribes to soccer officials, the US Justice Department said on Thursday. The money breaks down as $20.73 million in forfeiture and a $9.33 million fine.
The Israeli bank and its wholly owned Swiss subsidiary, Hapoalim Ltd., admitted that employees conspired to launder more than $20 million in bribes and kickbacks. The money was meant for officials at FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, and other federations. The two are the first financial institutions caught up in the FIFA scandal to reach a resolution with US prosecutors.
What the bank admitted
From December 2010 to February 2015, prosecutors said, bank employees agreed to launder payments made in exchange for sports broadcasting and marketing rights. The scheme ran through the banks’ Miami branch, and many of the payments were tied to marketing rights for the Copa America.
“For nearly five years, Bank Hapoalim employees used the US financial system to launder tens of millions of dollars in bribe payments to corrupt soccer officials in multiple countries,” said Brian A. Benczkowski, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.
William F. Sweeney, who ran the FBI’s New York field office, was blunter. “Bank Hapoalim admits executives looked the other way, and allowed illicit activity to continue even when employees discovered the scheme and reported it,” he said. No bank employee was named in the agreement.
The terms
The deal is a non-prosecution agreement. In return for cooperation and remedial steps, US prosecutors agreed not to prosecute the bank for three years, the Justice Department said. The banks and a second subsidiary, Hapoalim (Latin America) SA, also cannot be prosecuted for the crimes admitted in the deal, except for criminal tax violations.
A lawyer for the bank did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Where the money went
Prosecutors said Full Play Group, an Argentine company controlled by Hugo Jinkis and his son Mariano, won the rights to sell media and marketing for the 2015, 2016, 2019 and 2023 Copa Americas. Full Play held accounts at the banks in the names of subsidiaries including Bayan Group, Cross Trading and Yorkfields. The Jinkises used them to make at least 53 bribe payments totalling more than $14.02 million from 2010 to 2014, the statement of facts said.
The recipients included Luis Bedoya, a former president of Colombia’s federation, and Eugenio Figueredo, a former president of CONMEBOL and Uruguay’s federation. Rafael Esquivel of Venezuela took at least 34 payments totalling more than $9.41 million. Sergio Jadue of Chile received three payments worth $1.54 million in 2014.
Federal authorities in Manhattan said the same Thursday that Bank Hapoalim and its Swiss subsidiary would pay $874 million in a separate case. That one concerned allegations that they helped US taxpayers hide more than $7.6 billion from the IRS in over 5,500 secret Swiss and Israeli accounts.
The FIFA investigation became public in 2015. Since the first arrests at the FIFA Congress that May, there have been 26 publicly announced individual guilty pleas, including one from Concacaf general secretary Chuck Blazer. Former Brazilian federation president Jose Maria Marin and former CONMEBOL president Juan Angel Napout of Paraguay were convicted at trial and sentenced to prison.
Sources
- Bank Hapoalim Agrees to Pay Over $30 Million for Role in FIFA Scandal: DOJ
- Bank Admits Money Laundering Role in FIFA Scandal, Pays Over $30M as Punishment
