The Swiss justice ministry have said one of seven officials detained in Zurich as part of a U.S. corruption investigation into Fifa, has been extradited to The States.
The unnamed official was extradited on Wednesday having spent 50 days in confinement, the office of the Federal Office of Justice said.
“The first of the seven FIFA officials being held in custody in Switzerland was extradited to the US on 15 July,” the Swiss Justice official said.
“He was handed over to a three-man U.S. police escort in Zurich who accompanied him on the flight to New York,” the ministry said in a statement.
The official, who has been rumoured to be Jeffrey Webb of the Cayman Island, agreed to be extradited last week, unlike the rest who are fighting extradition.
Seven top Fifa officials were arrested in dawn raids at a Swiss five-star hotel in Zurich on 27 May by Swiss federal police on request by the US Justice Department.
Fifa vice president Webb and former Fifa vice president Eugenio Figueredo of Uruguay were among those arrested and has since been suspended from football duty by Fifa’s ethics committee.
The extradited man is accused of “accepting bribes totaling millions of dollars in connection with the sale of marketing rights to various sports marketing firms and keeping the money for himself,” the justice office said last week.
They are facing separate but simultaneous trial on allegation of bribery, fraud and money laundering, as well as investigation into the decision to award the 2018 and 2022 World Cup tournaments to Russia and Qatar by both Swiss and US authorities.
The U.S. Justice department have indicted 14 men, including the arrested seven high ranking Fifa officials and five sports marketers.
The others are: Jose Maria Marin, who led Brazil’s 2014 World Cup organizing committee; Eduardo Li, an elected member of FIFA’s executive committee and president of Costa Rica’s football federation; FIFA staffer Julio Rocha, a development officer from Nicaragua; Venezuela federation president Rafael Esquivel; and Costas Takkas, a Briton who works for CONCACAF President Webb.
