CIFA cash lands in Watson and Webb accounts, crown says

Jeffrey Webb

(CNS): As the crown pressed on with its case against Canover Watson and Miriam Rodrigues Wednesday, the court heard how public funds found their way into banks accounts controlled by Watson and his long-term friend and business partner, Jeffrey Webb, as well as cash from the Cayman Islands Football Association (CIFA). As the prosecutor continued his story about the men’s alleged corruption, he began to reveal more connections to their shared business interests generated through their football connections.

In 2011 Webb was president of CIFA and Watson was the treasurer, though they were not yet involved in the regional management level of the game. A year later Webb was to become president of CONCACAF and VP of FIFA, while Watson was to join the audit committee of FIFA.

But setting out its case against Watson, Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Patrick Moran also pointed to money that appears to have ended up in their various joint accounts that came directly from CIFA, and he explained how companies that Webb owned with his former FIFA colleague, Jack Warner, assisted in the movement of money to fund houses Webb and Watson bought in Atlanta, Georgia.

Moran directed the jury to transactions in April 2011 that involved a loan to one of Webb’s accounts from JD International, a firm Webb owned with Warner, in what appeared to be a bridging transaction. But money from another company, Black Holdings Ltd, also appeared in the Fidelity account Watson had created for AIS (Cayman) Ltd, the company created to handle the local control of the CarePay account with the hospital. $200,000 of that was then transferred to an American account held by Webb that he was using to fund a home in the US.

Moran said the money from Black Holdings had come from CIFA — cash which, according to other records, had come from FIFA as part of the grassroots programme to fund a new pitch.

Webb, who is also charged with corruption in the Watson case, is not on trial here as he is currently in the United States under house arrest in connection with the massive FIFA corruption scandal. Ironically, Webb remains on bail under house arrest at the very home that Cayman Islands prosecutors say was purchased with funds from the hospital contract and with money from FIFA.