Switzerland to return US$40m in seized funds
AUTHORITIES in Switzerland are to return CHF36,6 million (US$40,1m/€34,1m) in seized funds to Conmebol following criminal proceedings into the South American football Confederation’s former president Nicolás Leoz and ex-secretary general Eduardo Deluca.
The Swiss Office of the Attorney General (OAG) said on Wednesday that the funds, forfeited between December 2019 and September 2020, were “unlawfully acquired to the prejudice of Conmebol”.
Both Leoz and Deluca, two figures in the ‘Fifagate’ scandal, were alleged to have abused their positions and to have unlawfully enriched themselves and possibly other persons, the OAG said.
The OAG stated: “As the party suffering harm within the respective criminal proceedings is doubtlessly known — the Conmebol — the forfeited funds will be returned directly to it.”
Swiss prosecutors abandoned the proceedings against Leoz after the Paraguayan’s death in August 2019.
Despite the abandonment of the proceedings against Leoz, the OAG said that it seized more than CHF16,1m in the courts of its proceedings. Deluca was convicted by summary penalty order of complicity in multiple instances of aggravated criminal mismanagement. However, the OAG ended its criminal proceedings last month as Argentina was carrying out an investigation into the same matter.
The OAG said: “At the same time as abandoning its proceedings, the OAG also ordered that funds of around
CHF1.8m seized in the criminal proceedings in Switzerland would be forfeited and refunded to Conmebol.
“Also in September 2020, as part of criminal proceedings conducted against persons unknown, the OAG ordered the forfeiture of around CHF18,7m that the OAG had frozen in its proceedings in Switzerland, along with its restitution to Conmebol. Although the respective criminal proceedings are still ongoing, the restitution orders have already entered into force.”
Leoz was among the 14 football officials indicted by the US Department of Justice in May 2015, while Deluca was among 16 more officials charged in December 2015. Deluca was handed a life ban by Fifa in November 2019. — SportBusiness.