Brazilian Police suspect FIFA official's involvment in US$100m ticket scandal

The suspected ringleader was staying in this hotel before he was arrested

Police in Rio de Janeiro have arrested 11 people who are supposedly ticket touts suspected of being involved in a US $100 million ticket scandal.

Operation Jules Rimet saw the police tap the mobile phones of the alleged suspects before arresting them.

Fabio Barucke, who is in charge of the investigation said that the arrested official was the source of match tickets which would later be sold for eight times its value. Barucke also said that they will be meeting FIFA and its official match ticket agency for further investigations.

FIFA’s media relations manager Delia Fischer was surprisingly oblivious to any information pertaining to the identification of the suspects.

“Maybe it's not from Fifa – it's often easy to come to a conclusion about who is Fifa," she said.

Amongst the 11 suspects was their alleged ring leader Mohamedon Lamine Fofana, an Algerian who had stayed in the Copacabana Palace Hotel in Rio along with other top officials from FIFA.

Barucke said that the ring was planning to earn £60 m by selling tickets at high prices and have operated in the previous World Cup tournaments as well.

The investigator though believes that Fofana is the middleman and the real leader has not yet been caught.

"He [Fofana] has tickets from hospitality, from Match, and he was close friends with someone from Fifa who was in the middle of that negotiation - who was helping out with that negotiation.

"We were able to identify there is the participation of someone from Fifa," said Barucke.