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Wednesday, May 28, 2025

Anxious time ahead for Jack

US has 60 days to show proof of case

by

20150527

Af­ter em­bat­tled In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty (ILP) leader Jack Warn­er spent last night in jail af­ter fail­ing to se­cure bail, the Unit­ed States Jus­tice De­part­ment now has 60 days to pro­duce a for­mal re­quest for his ex­tra­di­tion to the US to face rack­e­teer­ing and oth­er charges on which he has been in­dict­ed there.

This is where the for­mer foot­ball ex­ec­u­tive and for­mer Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter, now on eight charges, stands af­ter yes­ter­day's move by US au­thor­i­ties on Warn­er and 13 Fi­fa and Con­ca­caf of­fi­cials from var­i­ous coun­tries.Warn­er was with Fi­fa since 1983 and was a vice-pres­i­dent and Con­ca­caf pres­i­dent un­til his sus­pen­sion and even­tu­al res­ig­na­tion from the roles in 2011 amid cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions.

Yes­ter­day's events con­cern­ing Warn­er un­fold­ed ear­ly with a state­ment from the US De­part­ment of Jus­tice which con­firmed that Warn­er, 72, was among nine cur­rent and for­mer Fi­fa of­fi­cials and five cor­po­rate ex­ec­u­tives in­dict­ed for al­leged rack­e­teer­ing con­spir­a­cy and cor­rup­tion af­ter a three-year probe.

The charges were an­nounced by US At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Loret­ta Lynch and a squad of US FBI, IRS and oth­er jus­tice of­fi­cials. This, ahead of to­day's Fi­fa lead­er­ship elec­tion. The charges against Warn­er are:

(a) One (1) count of con­spir­a­cy to know­ing­ly agree to con­duct or par­tic­i­pate in rack­e­teer­ing ac­tiv­i­ty, re­lat­ing to wire fraud and oth­er of­fences, which ei­ther en­gages in or af­fects in­ter­state or for­eign com­merce, in vi­o­la­tion of Ti­tle 18, Unit­ed States Code, Sec­tion 1962(d);

(b) Two (2) counts of con­spir­a­cy to de­vise any scheme or ar­ti­fice to de­fraud, in­clud­ing for the in­tan­gi­ble right of hon­est ser­vices, us­ing wire, ra­dio, or tele­vi­sion com­mu­ni­ca­tions to ex­e­cute such scheme or ar­ti­fice, in vi­o­la­tion of Ti­tle 18, Unit­ed States Code, Sec­tion 1343, 1346, and 1349;

(c) Two (2) counts of de­vis­ing any scheme or ar­ti­fice to de­fraud, us­ing wire, ra­dio, or tele­vi­sion com­mu­ni­ca­tions to ex­e­cute such scheme or ar­ti­fice, in vi­o­la­tion of Ti­tle 18, Unit­ed States Code, Sec­tion 1343;

(d) Two (2) counts of con­spir­ing to trans­port, trans­mit and trans­fer mon­e­tary in­stru­ments and funds from places in­side the Unit­ed States to and through places out­side the Unit­ed States and to places in the Unit­ed States from and through places out­side the Unit­ed States, with the in­tent to pro­mote the car­ry­ing on of spec­i­fied un­law­ful ac­tiv­i­ty, in vi­o­la­tion of Ti­tle 18, Unit­ed States Code, Sec­tions 1956(a)(2)(A) and 1956(h); and

(e) One (1) count of trans­port­ing, trans­mit­ting and trans­fer­ring mon­e­tary in­stru­ments and funds from places in­side the Unit­ed States to and through places out­side the Unit­ed States and to places in the Unit­ed States from and through places out­side the Unit­ed States, with the in­tent to pro­mote the car­ry­ing on of spec­i­fied un­law­ful ac­tiv­i­ty, in vi­o­la­tion of Ti­tle 18, Unit­ed States Code, Sec­tions 1956(a)(2)(A).

US of­fi­cials here

Around 7 am yes­ter­day, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Garvin Nicholas con­firmed an ap­pli­ca­tion had been made by the US au­thor­i­ties to ex­tra­dite Warn­er to the US to face the charges.Nicholas con­firmed US of­fi­cials were in T&T meet­ing with his min­istry's Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty on the is­sue. His sig­na­ture is re­quired as the fi­nal step in the ex­tra­di­tion process. Nicholas said he has re­ceived a copy of the US doc­u­ments from the US Em­bassy.

Not­ing the ar­rest of the sev­en top Fi­fa ex­ec­u­tives in Zurich, Switzer­land, Nicholas said: "These sev­en were among 14 high-rank­ing of­fi­cials of Fi­fa, as well as lead­ing of­fi­cials of oth­er re­lat­ed soc­cer gov­ern­ing bod­ies in­dict­ed on charges in the US."The al­le­ga­tions aris­ing out of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­clude bribery, cor­rup­tion, wire fraud con­spir­a­cy and mon­ey laun­der­ing. Amongst these 14 per­sons is Mr Warn­er, who was in­dict­ed on eight counts."

Nicholas said the nor­mal process would ap­ply and once an ap­pli­ca­tion was made it would be tak­en to the courts for ap­proval. On the length of time this could take, he said that would be de­ter­mined by many fac­tors, in­clud­ing the lev­el of ev­i­dence and mat­ters to be ap­pealed.Nicholas said the Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty Unit had been work­ing in con­junc­tion with the De­part­ment of Jus­tice for over two years re­gard­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion of transna­tion­al of­fences in­volv­ing Warn­er.

He said the war­rant for Warn­er's ar­rest was is­sued and turned over to T&T Po­lice Ser­vice for ex­e­cu­tion. His pass­port was al­so sur­ren­dered."Mr Warn­er is en­ti­tled to a fair ex­tra­di­tion process and both the re­quest­ing (US) and re­quest­ed (T&T) states in­tend to abide by the pro­vi­sions of the treaty to en­sure Mr Warn­er's rights are re­spect­ed," he said.

"In keep­ing with our in­ter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions, the Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty of T&T im­me­di­ate­ly fa­cil­i­tat­ed the process to ob­tain the war­rant which was is­sued by the Chief Mag­is­trate, Ms Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar."Nicholas said un­der the treaty be­tween the US and T&T, the Unit­ed States now has 60 days to pro­duce a for­mal re­quest for Warn­er's ex­tra­di­tion.

"The Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty will con­tin­ue to ful­fill its in­ter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions set out in the treaty. This re­quest is clear ev­i­dence of the strength of the re­la­tion­ship be­tween T&T and the US with re­spect to law en­force­ment mat­ters," he said.Nicholas said T&T had done four ex­tra­di­tions un­der his tenure in­volv­ing mat­ters with the US and UK.

US At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Lynch said the in­dict­ment against the Fi­fa of­fi­cials was not the fi­nal chap­ter in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.She said the US looked for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to work with oth­er coun­tries in the ef­fort.

Co-min­gled funds

The in­dict­ment al­leges that be­tween 1991 and the present, the de­fen­dants and their co-con­spir­a­tors "cor­rupt­ed the (Fi­fa) en­ter­prise by en­gag­ing in var­i­ous crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing fraud, bribery and mon­ey laun­der­ing.It de­scribed Warn­er as a key fig­ure in the mat­ter. It al­leged that he be­gan so­lic­it­ing and ac­cept­ing bribes in con­nec­tion with his of­fi­cial du­ties, in­clud­ing the elec­tion of a host na­tion for World Cup match­es in 1998 and 2010.

It al­so al­leged that he set up and con­trolled nu­mer­ous bank ac­counts in T&T and else­where and min­gled per­son­al funds with Fi­fa-con­trolled bod­ies.The De­part­ment of Jus­tice said a 47-count in­dict­ment was un­sealed ear­ly yes­ter­day in a fed­er­al court in Brook­lyn, New York, charg­ing 14 de­fen­dants with rack­e­teer­ing, wire fraud and mon­ey laun­der­ing con­spir­a­cies.

Yes­ter­day, Swiss au­thor­i­ties in Zurich al­so ar­rest­ed sev­en of the de­fen­dants at the US' re­quest. A search war­rant was al­so ex­e­cut­ed at Con­ca­caf head­quar­ters in Mi­a­mi, Flori­da.

The De­part­ment of Jus­tice stat­ed that most of the schemes al­leged in the in­dict­ment re­late to the so­lic­i­ta­tion and re­ceipt of bribes and kick­backs by soc­cer of­fi­cials from sports mar­ket­ing ex­ec­u­tives in con­nec­tion with the com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of the me­dia and mar­ket­ing rights as­so­ci­at­ed with var­i­ous soc­cer match­es and tour­na­ments, in­clud­ing Fi­fa World Cup qual­i­fiers in the Con­ca­caf re­gion and oth­er match­es.

Four oth­er de­fen­dants–in­clud­ing Warn­er's two sons and for­mer Fi­fa gen­er­al sec­re­tary Chuck Blaz­er–plead­ed guilty when they were charged in 2013.On Ju­ly 15, 2013, Daryll Warn­er waived in­dict­ment and plead­ed guilty to a two-count in­for­ma­tion charg­ing Daryan with wire fraud and the struc­tur­ing of fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tions.

On Oc­to­ber 25, 2013, Daryan Warn­er waived in­dict­ment and plead­ed guilty to a three-count in­for­ma­tion charg­ing him with wire fraud con­spir­a­cy, mon­ey laun­der­ing con­spir­a­cy and the struc­tur­ing of fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tions.Daryan Warn­er for­feit­ed over $1.1 mil­lion around the time of his plea and has agreed to pay a sec­ond for­fei­ture mon­ey judg­ment at the time of sen­tenc­ing. Both are in the US.


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