The wealth management bank Julius Baer on Thursday agreed to pay nearly $ 80 million to the United States. This is to lift the prosecution in connection with a corruption scandal within FIFA.
Keystone
The financial institution admitted in a New York court to have participated in the laundering, via the United States, of more than 36 million dollars intended for officials of FIFA and other federations “as part of a scheme in which sports marketing companies bribed officials to obtain the rights to broadcast football matches, ”said a statement from the US Department of Justice.
In May 2015, the US Department of Justice had indicted 14 people, including 9 senior FIFA officials, as part of a vast investigation that had led to spectacular arrests in the early morning in a large hotel in Zurich.
This scandal shook the powerful sports organization and pushed its president Sepp Blatter to leave.
Julius Baer was one of the banks whose names had been mentioned in the list of establishments used to carry out money transfers, transactions scrutinized by the American authorities.
A former Julius Baer banker, Jorge Luis Arzuaga, pleaded guilty in 2017. He was accused of having opened accounts in the name of shell companies and thus facilitated the payment of bribes to officials of the Argentine Football Federation.
The bank and its employees “have facilitated bribes and the compliance department has turned a blind eye to the blatant red flags of money laundering,” said Mark Lesko, a New York prosecutor.
According to the Justice Ministry, the bank “knew that Arzuaga’s client accounts were associated with international football, which was generally considered to carry high corruption risks.”
One of its leaders “nevertheless ordered that the opening of these accounts be accelerated in the hope that these customers would provide lucrative business,” the ministry added in the statement.
The authorities agreed to waive the charges in exchange for payment of a fine of $ 43.32 million and payment of $ 36.37 million, equivalent to the bribes that passed through his accounts, as well as a commitment to abide by the terms of an agreement for three years.
The resolution of the lawsuits brought by the United States “marks a new stage in Julius Baer’s continued efforts to put an end to the regulatory and legal proceedings still in progress, in cooperation with the authorities concerned,” the bank said in a statement. .
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