By Ben Tavener
SAO PAULO
Civil police in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro have arrested the chief executive of a FIFA partner they believe to be the leader of a long-running, international World Cup ticket scam, local media reported Monday.
Police arrested Raymond Whelan, a British national and FIFA partner, at the city's world-renowned Copacabana Palace hotel. Whelan is CEO of Match Hospitality services, a company with exclusive rights to reselling World Cup tickets for the tournament's organizers, FIFA.
Whelan, 64, was arrested on suspicion of coordinating an international group behind the illegal reselling of tickets, some of which are thought to have originated from tickets allocated to players.
The news came a day after an investigation by the popular Brazilian television show Fantastico has revealed that an Algerian man at the heart of the scam made at least 900 calls to an official FIFA cell phone.
The scam was broken up by Brazilian investigators last week, and led to 11 arrests, including the alleged ringleader, Algerian national Mohamadou Lamine Fofana, 57, who was detained in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro.
Rio's investigative civil police force are reported to have requested a list of all the official Brazilian numbers that World Cup organizers FIFA uses in Brazil, along with a list of the users' identities, and have said that if the information were not forthcoming through "good faith" then police would seek the information in other ways.
FIFA has since said it will cooperate with the police.
"There is someone involved inside FIFA, because otherwise he would not have managed to get this vast number of tickets," prosecutor Marcos Kac is quoted by the program as saying. "They were moving at least 1,000 tickets per game."
Kac had said their investigation was closing in on the member of FIFA involved in the scheme.
Those interested were instructed to go to the Copacabana Palace hotel, which is also hosting the FIFA delegation in Rio de Janeiro, to pick up the tickets.
Brazilian investigators spent three months piecing together who was involved in the scam, which police believe had been operating since the 2002 Japan-South Korea edition of the key football tournament and, on this occasion, involved figures from within the football federations of Brazil, Argentina and Spain.
Police intercepted and trawled phone calls, text messages, emails and other communications to arrive at Lamine, who has a long history in the world of football. According to the report, he played in Europe and North America, and later made a living by working as a consultant for companies, teams and players.
Lamine was witnessed buying expensive presents at airports, such as bottles of whisky, which he allegedly went on to use to soften up vital connections.
Massive middleman profits
According to FIFA, over 3.3 million tickets were issued for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, and a considerable portions of those went to corporate sponsors of the event and various global football federations.
While there are companies authorized to resell tickets for VIP areas, regular fans can only buy tickets through the FIFA website.
Police says Lamine managed to tout tickets of all levels, including those supposedly restricted to sponsors and luxury World Cup packages.
At the rate the group were charging for the illegal tickets, often at around $1,365 each according to the report, police believe that the gang could have made around $90 million at this year's World Cup alone.
It is thought the group lies low between World Cups as profit on the illegal tickets is sufficiently high for the criminal gang to wait until the next tournament.
Tickets should cost between $110 and $220 for non-Brazilians, according to FIFA website. Even regular tickets for the final in Rio's famous Maracana stadium should only cost between $440 and $990.
Lamine is one of the 11 people arrested last Tuesday in both Rio and Sao Paulo in connection with the ticket scam, and have been charged with illegal money changing, criminal association and money laundering.
If convicted of all charges, the men could each face a prison sentence of 18 years.
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