Takkas admits helping Webb launder FIFA bribes
Costas Takkas
(CNS): The former general secretary of the Cayman Islands Football Association has pleaded guilty to money laundering charges after he admitted receiving and passing along over $1.5 million to his old boss, Jeffrey Webb, in the ongoing FIFA scandal. Costas Takkas (60), who was Webb’s aide, said he received and passed on cash to the former CONCACAF president and FIFA vice president, at his direction, that had come from sports marketing companies as bribes to secure the lucrative rights for football tournaments.
A release from the US Department of Justice said that when Webb accepted a $3 million bribe in exchange for using his influence to award contracts for media coverage of football games, Takkas and representatives of Traffic USA, one of the sports marketing companies, funnelled half of that bribe through front companies and accounts controlled by Takkas. He told a New York court Wednesday that he “consciously avoided knowing that these companies were giving Mr Webb money in order to influence his actions as a football official”.
Takkas was arrested along with Webb and other football officials in Switzerland two years ago, in May 2015, and had at first pleaded not guilty to the accusations. Webb had pleaded guilty to racketeering, conspiracy and other charges in November of that year, but more than 18 months later he has still not been sentenced.
Webb, who remains under house arrest in Georgia, was due to be sentenced in May but the hearing was postponed until July. Takkas is expected to be sentenced in September, but after spending more than ten months on remand in Switzerland and having pleaded guilty to just one of what were originally ten charges, the former football official, described by his lawyer as a “minor figure” in the much wider scandal, could escape more jail time.
Category: Crime, USA, World News
Run Jeff Run!!!
Looks like prison food has been good for his waistline if nothing else.
How does one “consciously avoid knowing” anything?? He shud get the cow cod just for making that statement in court
I want to know if CIFA is still working with the prison on a rehabilitation program for some convicted prisoners for reentering society. Saw something on the news about it a couple of weeks ago.
You can’t make that crap up – XXXXX! I am sure they are all standing for Government election 2021
Will Webb ever be sentenced!!!
They are all family and they have bills to pay.
What about the other guys who “hightailed” out of Switzerland when Webb was arrested..?
They must have known what was happening., anyone in Cayman care.?
Meanwhile…has anything really changed at CIFA or CONCACAF? Remind me, when is International Women’s Football Day? They seem too distracted – either perpetuating long-standing scams and/or shredding evidence – to feign nobility at their self-proclaimed “centers of excellence”.
Costas for Premier !
Given that events happened in Cayman, we might expect that charges would also follow in Cayman. However, I would bet that no charges will be laid in Cayman as it ‘would not be in the public interest’ to have any light shone on those events when the football gravy train is starting up again.
Cayman we all know there is at least one financial institution and one individual that needs to answer for this (and Carepay). Don’t wait for another jurisdiction to force prosecution..show the world we are not the pirates and money launderers of old.
But we still is! We now sell the right to be a pirate launder of today with a lovely smile.
Pray to God B. Bush doesn’t get Sports, because that will be the end of story. When people who are so close to him was there and nothing said.