The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A Bahamas banker made a round-trip to New York to collect a $250,000 cheque from a top FIFA official that was part of a $10 million bribe to influence voting on which nation would stage the 2010 soccer World Cup.

The unnamed CIBC FirstCaribbean International executive collected the cheque from disgraced American soccer official, Chuck Blazer, court documents allege.

They then flew back to the Bahamas on May 3, 2011, and deposited the $250,000 into Blazer’s CIBC FirstCaribbean bank account in Nassau, which had been undeclared to the US tax authorities until the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began its FIFA bribery probe.

The corruption scandal engulfing world soccer’s governing body has several links to the Bahamas, documents assessed by Tribune Business show.

Apart from the $250,000 cheque, Blazer, the former general secretary of CONCACAF, the regional governing soccer body for the Caribbean, Central and North America, was also previously found to have “misappropriated” nearly $1 million to help pay for the acquisition of apartments at Atlantis’s The Reef complex.

CONCACAF’s own inquiry into Blazer, which concluded that he misappropriated $15 million from it, also reveals that the former general-secretary attempted to exploit the organisation’s non-profit status to obtain Bahamian tax concessions on the Atlantis apartment deals.

For CONCACAF has been registered as a non-profit organisation in the Bahamas since 1994, residing under the Companies Act.

Given the corruption allegations contained in the US Justice Department’s lawsuits against Blazer and his former boss and ally, ex-CONCACAF president Jack Warner, and the multi-million dollar sums sloshing around via its TV and marketing rights deals, it remains to be seen whether the Government will review the regional soccer governing body’s non-profit status.

The $250,000 cheque payment to Blazer, who is thought to be co-operating with the FBI probe and effectively pleaded guilty to the allegations against him, stemmed from the campaign to host FIFA’s 2010 soccer World Cup.

The US Justice Department’s lawsuit against him alleges that there was much competition for the votes of Blazer and his fellow FIFA executive committee members, who would ultimately select the host nation.

Morocco allegedly offered to pay a $1 million bribe to one of Blazer’s colleagues, before representatives from FIFA, the South African government and its bid committee told the same person they were prepared to offer him $10 million - dressed up as a payment to a soccer organisation “to support the African diaspora”.

Blazer was due a $1 million cut from the $10 million, ultimately receiving $750,000 via three payments.

The third and final one was connected to the Bahamas, with the $250,000 drawn on a bank account held by the Caribbean Football Union (which represents the Bahamas). The cheque was delivered from Trinidad to Blazer at CONCACAF’s New York offices.

“A representative of FirstCaribbean International Bank in the Bahamas, where Blazer held another account, subsequently travelled by plane to New York, landing at JFK Airport,” the US Justice Department said.

“After arriving the bank representative travelled to New York, where he took custody of the cheque. He subsequently travelled to the Bahamas and, on or about May 3, 201, deposited the cheque into Blazer’s account.”

In the electronic age, it is highly unusual for bankers to travel cross-border for pick up cheques from clients, then return home to deposit them. All this indicates that Blazer must have been a highly valued CIBC FirstCaribbean client.

Yet it is this same Bahamas bank account that has resulted in Blazer being charged with “wilful failure” to report his beneficial ownership of a foreign bank account, as he had failed to inform the US Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of its existence for income tax purposes.

This was not the first time that Blazer’s Bahamas connections have got him into trouble. CONCACAF’s own investigation into their former general secretary found he caused it to enter two purchase agreements for apartments at Atlantis’s Reef complex in December 2007.

The two units, valued at $2.86 million and $1.69 million, were worth a collective $4.5 million, and Blazer used CONCACAF funds to make a $910,000 deposit.

Blazer initially sought to buy four Atlantis apartments, two in his name and two that he put in CONCACAF’s name.

“By late 2008, however, Blazer had not closed on any of the apartments, and e-mails show that he began to have reservations about their potential to generate positive cash flows in a rental programme at Atlantis, and more generally about the financial prudence of the transactions,” the CONCACAF report said.

The $910,000 deposit was then switched to ‘commissions’ said to be owed to Blazer, and he restructured the deal in January 2009 so CONCACAF would only buy one apartment.

“During the restructuring, Blazer expressed interest in potential tax benefits that might apply in connection with CONCACAF’s purchase of the apartment,” the inquiry said.

“He explained to an Atlantis sales representative that CONCACAF ‘may apply for [this apartment] to be tax free since we are a ‘not for profit’ Bahamian corporation and may get the Government to waive it’.”

Ultimately, Blazer replaced CONCACAF as the purchaser with a Bahamas-incorporated entity, which paid the deposit in late 2009.

CONCACAF censured Blazer for not obtaining approval for the purchase, and the inquiry said that despite the body being registered in the Bahamas, it “found no evidence of a business rationale for CONCACAF to own apartments at Atlantis”.

The inquiry found that Blazer had misappropriated assets to finance his own lifestyle, while also jeopardising CONCACAF’s exempt status in the US by failing to file income tax returns.