Brazil police suspect Fifa figure in illegal ticket sales

Investigators seek help from football governing body to identify source of tickets sold at inflated rates.

Thousands of tickets for World Cup 2014 matches in Brazil have been sold illegally at inflated prices, a Brazilian police chief said on July 3, 2014. Yasuyoshi Chiba / AFP

RIO DE JANEIRO // Thousands of illegally sold tickets for the World Cup worth millions of dollars are believed to have originated from a member of Fifa, police said on Thursday.

The unnamed foreign national was staying at the luxury Copacabana Palace hotel, one of the top Rio hotels being used by the Fifa hierarchy, police commissioner Fabio Barucke said.

“While he may not be a powerful person, we have indications to say it’s a person with a lot of influence to obtain tickets well sought-after by the population,” Mr Barucke said. “He is a big source of tickets being resold.”

The police, who are analysing about 50,000 recorded phone calls, are asking Fifa for collaboration to identify the suspect, he said.

The individual is thought to have funnelled tickets to the black market with an intermediary in Match Hospitality, the official World Cup ticket agency, Mr Barucke said.

Match Hospitality also organises ticketing for other major sporting events.

Police made 11 arrests on Tuesday of people accused of selling tickets that may have been obtained through a contact at world football’s governing body.

Mr Barucke said the police investigation, dubbed “Operation Jules Rimet” after the former French Fifa president, had been undertaken in secret without contacting Fifa.

However, following the arrests “we are now calling for Fifa’s assistance to help us identify this Fifa person, a foreigner staying in the Copacabana Palace hotel,” Mr Barucke said.

A French-Algerian, identified as Mohamadou Lamine Fofana, had been arrested and was initially thought to be responsible for the scam, Mr Barucke said.

“But after his arrest we realised there was someone above him from Fifa with an intermediary at Match Hospitality,” he said.

“We want to identify the last link in the chain, from the ticket touts at the stadiums, right through to those who are above Lamine Fofona and who passed the tickets on to him.”

The scam may involve the sale of as many as 1,000 tickets for each of the 64 matches in the current World Cup in Brazil, and is believed to have encompassed three previous editions dating back to the 2002 finals.

The gang of touts could have pocketed up to US$95 million (Dh349m) per tournament, according to Brazil’s O Dia daily.

A spokeswoman for Fifa said the organisation was trying to establish where the scalped tickets came from.

“Maybe this person is not Fifa, we need to validate certain things and that’s what we’re going to do,” spokeswoman Delia Fischer said, adding that the organisation is waiting on further information.

“We cannot draw any conclusions; there are a lot of rumours around.”

Fifa has sold almost 3 million tickets for the month-long event.

Charging more than face value for a ticket is a crime in Brazil.

* Agence France-Presse and Bloomberg News