[crowd shouting]
- The importance of soccer internationally is kind of incomprehensible.
- The World Cup Tournament is the single largest sporting event in the world.
- Soccer is life.
[crowd shouting]
- These individuals that are part of the FIFA organizations,
they are treated like royalty.
[jazz music]
- In the beginning, the biggest piece was bribery
for World Cup votes.
- We looked at this case as an organized-crime case.
- You could look at the structure of FIFA,
almost like a traditional organized-crime family
with a boss, an underboss, capos, soldiers...
[narrator]: A pattern of fraud, bribery and kickbacks
that netted international soccr officials and
marketing executives $150 million over the last 24 years.
- If anyone overseas caught wind that the FBI was investigating
FIFA, the case would have finished before it started.
- Who leaked it? What if, a Swiss law enforcement
officer gets killed?
- This really is the world cup of fraud.
And today we're issuing FIFA a red card.
[narrator]: In the FBI, we make a lot of headlines.
Drug busts, mob stings.
Terrorist takedowns.
[people shouting]
We understand why people want to tell stories about us.
[director]: Mark it. - Freeze!
- FBI!
[man in the background]: Action!
[narrator]: But they don't know the half of it.
What really goes down?
We save that for each other,
when we're talking agent to agent.
This is FBI. True.
- So, what is FIFA?
- FIFA is the organization that oversees world soccer.
[narrator]: Mike Gaeta supervised the Eurasian organized-crime team
and headed the New York office's money laundering
investigations squad.
- Soccer is the largest sport in the world.
FIFA is the largest sport governing body in the world.
- Are they like the size of the United Nations?
- It's bigger than the United Nations.
[narrator]: John Penza is a 21-year veteran of the FBI.
John served as both an investigator and a supervisor
for the Eurasian and Italian organized-crime squads,
focusing on high-level financial crimes.
- FIFA's made up of six confederations that are
groups of regions of countries all over the world.
[suspenseful music]
It is the body that is controlling the World Cup
and all the various tournaments that are held internationally.
- You're an FBI squad in New York.
How does FIFA come across your desk?
[narrator]: Kristy Kottis is a 24-year veteran of the FB.
she worked gangs, crimes against children
as well as human and drug trafficking.
- So in 2009, I was assigned to be the supervisor of
the Russian organized-crime squad, and I was given
the mandate to look internationally
for transnational organized-crime, to look for sophisticated
criminal activity that affected the United States.
So I was asked to fly to London to meet some people who wanted
to talk to us and provide us information about international criminal activity.
One of the things this person talks about
is FIFA and corruption at FIFA.
The information that we were told was that for years,
people were being bribed to vote for World Cup locations.
- Think about the Olympics.
It's bigger.
It's a huge, huge, huge event and a gigantic money-maker
for that country that gets that bid.
- There were also allegations of match fixing.
There were also allegations of bribery
for tickets for tournaments.
- Are certain countries mentioned?
People? What are they telling you?
- So this was 2009.
[sportscaster]: A shot at the goal.
And guess who's got it?
FIFA Club World Cup champions, Barcelona.
- One of the pieces of information we heard was
that Russia had been working to bribe
to obtain votes for the World Cup for 2018.
What we learned is that there was a group within FIFA
that was physically based in New York City.
And so if there was corruption and they were engaged,
then that corruption was happening here in New York City.
So it was really in our backyard.
- So you're overseas, you're getting this information.
You take that back to the United States.
Where do you begin? - I had significant experience
conducting organized-crime cases, RICO cases,
criminal enterprise matters.
We looked at it as a criminal enterprise case
and formulated it that way.
We had a target here in New York City named Chuck Blazer
who is one of the executives of CONCACAF, which was
one of the bodies that make up FIFA, the body that covers
North America and the Caribbean.
He was very influential in the business side of world soccer.
[relaxing music]
- If I look back 10 years, 20 years and see the progress
we've made, I'm very proud of our accomplishments.
- Chuck lived a very high life here in New York City.
He was out on the town.
Somewhat of a socialite.
[upbeat music]
- He had two apartments in Trump Tower.
He lived on one of the top floors.
- Two?
Two. One for him, and one for his cats.
[meowing]
- When you were over in London, what other names
were they throwing at you and have you seen them now
in your investigation?
- One of the other names was Chuck's partner at CONCACAF,
Jack Warner, who actually was the president of CONCACAF.
Jack was from Trinidad and Tobago.
Part of the importance of their positions and them
in particular, was that they were actually voting members
on the executive committee of FIFA.
- What does the executive committee do that makes that so important?
- One of the more important things they do is vote
for where the World Cup is going to be held, incredibly big.
- That's huge. [Mike]: Yeah.
And you've got heads of state meeting with
the executive committees of FIFA lobbying
to have the vote for them.
They want the World Cup in their country.
- These individuals that are part of the FIFA organization,
specifically the ExCo members, they are treated like royalty.
The way they traveled, first class everywhere,
the best restaurants.
Just unbelievable, the money and power these folks have.
[crowd shouting]
[sportscaster]: Looking for Fàbregas. No, it's Iniesta.
This is it! That's the goal!
Spain are the kings of world football.
- So at this point in the investigation,
has the ExCo had a vote on who's going to get the next World Cup?
- When we initiated the investigation, we knew that
in a couple of months there was going to be a vote
for the World Cup for 2018 and 2022.
Part of the information we had obtained was that Russia
was going to corruptly influence the vote.
[tense music]
- It is indeed a great day today, here in Zurich.
[tense music]
The 2018 FIFA World Cup, ladies and gentlemen,
will be organized in Russia.
[acclamations]
[Mike]: At that point, we realize, this is the big break.
We couldn't believe it.
- Let us make history together.
- This is not a small thing.
Heads of state are involved.
[riveting music]
One of the things we learned was that corruption in FIFA
had been in the media for years, overseas.
But in the States we didn't see it.
[Andrew Jennings]: Good morning, welcome to Zurich.
How much profit did you make selling World Cup tickets this year?
Do you know which football officials took bribes?
- I don't answer these questions.
- Reporting on corruption and saying
something is corrupt is one thing.
[Kristy]: Right.
- Proving it in a court of law, particularly
in the United States, is a completely different story.
[sportscaster]: A prayer, I suspect from Kumagii.
And the World Cup for Japan!
They have rewritten the history books.
[Mike]: Shortly after the announcement that the vote for 2018
went to Russia, we bring IRS on to join in on the case.
And so the idea was let's look from a tax perspective
at Chuck in particular.
The information that came back was Chuck hadn't paid taxes
for almost 20 years.
[upbeat music]
- And when you say hasn't paid taxes in 20 years,
we're not talking about like he made $10,000 a year
and he just didn't file--
- Well, we didn't know how much money because
he didn't report it. - Right.
- However, working at the highest levels of FIFA,
living the lifestyle that he did in Trump Tower in New York City,
traveling the world, we knew he's got money
and he's living it up, not reporting any of it.
That is leverage that you can now utilize
to obtain his cooperation.
- Based on the tax information, and potentially
he could be ripe for the flip.
- Right.
Approaching an individual to try and get them
to cooperate, you have to be very strategic about it
if you're doing a criminal enterprise case.
- Absolutely - Because it's not about Chuck.
- No.
- The case is about a much bigger picture.
[suspenseful music]
If the approach with Chuck fails, then everybody will know
what we're trying to do because he'll tell everybody.
- Yeah. - You have to plan out
how to do so in a way that is the least public way possible.
And you do that just old school surveillance,
trying to figure out his routine.
And the idea was to wait near Trump Tower.
Odds are he's coming out and going to dinner.
He was always out eating dinner.
They approach him and said: "We need to speak with you.
You have some issues that you need to explain."
He was taken aback at first.
But he's also a very cool character.
He composed himself quickly and said:
"Look, I know, I want to help.
I'll call you and we'll set something up."
- Now you've got the target saying: "Yeah, I'll work with you".
- Well, he says: "I'll meet with you."
- I got excited. - Getting to the point where
he'll work with us... - Yeah.
-...takes a little bit.
And so ultimately there's a meeting in 26 Fed.
At that meeting, he's presented with what we know,
which is the fact that he hadn't paid taxes for years.
He's also presented with options.
He can A, try to address his tax situation by proactively helping the government.
Or he can sit back and wait for the government to charge him
criminally and then go to prison.
- That's B. - Right.
- And he chooses? - He chose A.
- So, when he leaves that door and he walks out,
there's got to be a little trepidation like:
"I hope he shuts his mouth". - Yeah. Everytime.
You know, because if he tells his girlfriend, his ex-wife,
Jack Warner. Game over for the investigation.
[sportscaster speaks indistinctly]
[sportscaster]: They are going to have one evening to celebrae
here which will last long into the night.
- So now that we've got Chuck to flip,
what are the goals in this case?
- This is an organized-crime case,
and organized crime-cases are made with cooperators.
So you have to develop cooperators like Chuck.
But to get to the hierarchy, the top targets of the group,
you have to get step by step cooperation.
Because you're not going to find it on paper.
- So what does that look like?
- First, we're meeting with Chuck, with the, with the U.S.
attorney's offices, and he is proffering.
He is telling us some of his bad deeds and folks
that he's engaged in criminal activity with.
Then the next logical step for us as investigators
is to get him talking to those bad guys,
to get those conversations on tape.
And that's exactly what we did.
[rhythmic music]
- So where does that lead us?
- We have a number of months where he's actively wiring up
against various people.
- Here in the United States, or...
- Here in the US and overseas.
- Oh, he goes overseas, too. - He went overseas and
we had him at the Olympics in London in 2012.
Developing information against the targets of the case.
- Now Chuck is telling us about other people.
Are some of the people that he mentions,
do we know who they are and have we seen them
in our investigation?
They were other members of the ExCo.
Sepp Blatter, who was the top of the hierarchy.
The head of FIFA.
[upbeat music]
- I have been elected by 133 national associations,
but I am the president of everybody.
- And so they were high-profile people, but there were also
people we never knew about in various aspects
of this corruption, over the years.
We're talking 20 years of activity that we learned from Chuck.
- What are some of the people that you get from him
that are pretty big cheeses?
- An individual named José Hawilla.
He lived in Brazil. Very big player in the sports
marketing scene in South America.
He had significant contact with other ExCo
members from South America.
- What's his job in South America?
- He had a couple of companies that negotiated for
television rights and for the various tournaments
that FIFA would hold in South America.
He would obtain those rights and then he would
resell those rights.
[cheering from the crowd]
[sportscaster]: Neymar! Wow!
There's no stopping that.
- What information do we get about that individual?
- In regard to what Chuck knew and talked about,
it was a bribe that had been covered up.
Knowing that Hawilla was currently involved in the mix
with ExCo members down in Florida, big players,
longtime players within FIFA, we thought we could turn that into something.
But at the same time, we're also recognizing that,
you know, look, if we don't get Hawilla,
this case may not go further.
It's kind of a make or break situation.
So the U.S. Attorney's office prepares the complaint,
and we get a warrant for his arrest.
[upbeat jazzy music]
We learned a couple days in advance
he was coming into Miami.
We had a team down in Miami and they arrested him
when he came off the plane.
- Was he shocked?
- Extremely.
- He's obviously a Portuguese speaker and Spanish
and English is like his third language.
So we're trying to convey to him how serious of a position
he's in and that he needs to fully cooperate or else
he will never go back to Brazil again.
- So when you guys target José, you guys are having
like a come to Jesus moment.
And what happens after that?
- He starts making the recordings he needs to make.
[crowd cheering]
[sportscaster]: Mario Goötze for Germany!
112 minutes!
They find the way!
- From him, how many other subjects now are we developing?
- 17, 18, 19.
[Kristy]: Wow. - And keep in mind, his base
of operations is Brazil.
That's CONMEBOL territory, another federation
similar to CONCACAF.
All those countries in South America, Hawilla has access to.
So literally the floodgates opened when he came in.
- Now all of a sudden you're probably getting a firehose
of information and evidence.
- Yeah, and you're triaging those folks. - Yeah.
- Who makes the most sense? Are they US-based?
Can we put our hands on them?
Are they from non-extraditing countries?
- So was a lot of it based on information that Chuck had gotten you?
- Chuck, Hawilla and other cooperators.
And we were able to, in collaboration with the IRS
and the U.S. Attorney's Office, build a RICO indictment
against initially 14 individuals.
- Wow.
[suspenseful music]
[sportscaster]: John Smith forward. Bryan is there as wel.
[shouting indistinctly]
What is down for the United States?
The United States of America are the 2015 World Cup winners.
- We found out there was going to be a FIFA ExCo meeting in Zurich.
It was going to be about a week at an exclusive hotel.
- All the players that we want to arrest are in one location.
- These were folks that we hoped would travel to Zurich for the meeting.
Again, we hoped.
The arrests were going to be at 0600, 6 a.m.
Swiss time, which was going to be midnight our time.
A quarter after 11, 11:30, IRS, the FIFA FBI team and
the Department of Justice from Eastern District,
we all assembled in the command post in 26 Federal Plaza.
We had a live feed to Hoover.
We had direct comms with Zurich.
And we had different news channels on
and waited for the arrests to start.
- The excitement must be palpable.
- The adrenaline is pumping.
What's going to happen?
Is everybody there?
Who's not there?
Shortly before midnight, again, we had all these
news channels on, there's like some kind of CNN banner
about an arrest in Zurich.
- Wait... OK. Time out. You're sitting in the op center
and then a banner comes up that says
there's going to be arrests in Zurich.
Were you like, it's over?
- I looked at the lead AUSA, Evan Norris,
and I'm like: "what the fuck?"
Who leaked it?
- Right. - What if, God forbid,
a Swiss law enforcement officer gets hurt or God forbid, killed?
- Right. - Who would do this?
But from the timing of it, we did not collectively
have enough time to start pointing fingers.
And we just had to say, you know what?
It's there. It's out there. I can't control it any longer.
Let the Swiss go and make the arrests
and let the chips fall where they may.
Fortunately the Swiss just, they started going after
these guys at 6 a.m. in Zurich time.
We start hearing: "so and so is in custody.
So and so is in custody.
So and so is in custody." And then, you're relieved.
- I was stationed in Rome on that day, by 7:00 my phone
was blowing up from all my Italian law enforcement
contacts who were seeing the news,
who were all soccer fans. They loved it.
They couldn't believe it.
[journalist]: In an early morning police raid,
Swiss authorities were seen escorting several senior FIFA
officials from Zurich's luxury Baur au Lac hotel.
Seven men at the hotel were arrested,
including FIFA vice president Jeffrey Webb.
Eight others have been indicte.
- The 47-count indictment against these individuals
includes charges of racketeering, wire fraud
and money laundering conspiracies spanning two decades.
These individuals, through these organizations, engaged
in bribery to decide who would televise games,
where the games would be held, and who would run
the organization overseeing organized soccer worldwide.
[calm music]
- I have never taken a bribe from FIFA or anybody else.
- The fact that you have international businessmen
who are abusing the system and basically
making the rules for themselves.
They're using the US financial system to do it.
And for me, that indictment and those arrests and the pictures
of them being arrested coming out of the hotel
with a sheet covering them because they should
be embarrassed, sends a message to others like them
all over the world that you can't do everything you want
and there are going to be consequences.
- You took something that was
Snow White clean and made it dirty.
You took a sport that five, six, seven-year-old kids play.
And you just made it a dirty business.
- Yeah. - And I think to me personally,
that's infuriating.
[crowd cheering]
Subtitling: difuze