Corruption Investigation

Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter has been handed a further six years and eight months ban from the game and fined a million Swiss francs ($1.07 million) by the body's Ethics Committee after a probe into massive bonus payments.

The latest investigation looked into World Cup bonus payments made to Blatter and some former top FIFA officials, including former general secretary Jerome Valcke, former vice-president Julio Grondona and ex-finance director Markus Kattner.

The new bans start when the current suspensions of 85-year-old Blatter and Valcke, 60, end in October 2021 and October 2025, respectively.

Nikolas Löbel, a lawmaker from German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), stepped down on Monday over a government deal to procure face masks.

"In order to avoid further damage to my party, I am resigning my Bundestag mandate with immediate effect," Löbel said.

Justice Edson Fachin of the Federal Supreme Court overturned on Monday 8 all the condemnations imposed on former President Lula during the Operation Car Wash (Operação Lava Jato). According to Fachin, the Federal Justice of Paraná, responsible for the convictions at first instance, is incompetent to judge the Guarujá triplex, the Atibaia site and the Lula Institute cases.

In 2017, the then judge Sergio Moro sentenced Lula to 9 years and 6 months in prison for passive corruption and money laundering in the case of a triplex flat. Lula, however, denies that he benefited from the flat and is trying to prove in court the suspicion of Moro - who a few years later became Minister of Justice and Public Safety in the government of Jair Bolsonaro.

With the decision, the cases will be analyzed by the Federal Court of the Federal District, which will have the autonomy to decide whether to maintain the convictions already imposed or send the cases to the criminal investigation stage.

The former French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, was found guilty of having tried to obtain confidential information about him from a magistrate, and to obtain a dismissal in an older case.

He has been sentenced to 3 years in prison (1 year custodial and 2 non-custodial).

He can still appeal against this conviction.

The Economic and Corruption Prosecutor's Office (WKStA) has conducted a "voluntary inspection" at Finance Minister Gernot Blümel's (ÖVP) private home address. This was confirmed by the minister's office on Thursday. He had been questioned about the casino case, after which he was presented with the search warrant, it said. Blümel had then agreed to a "voluntary inspection", otherwise a house search would have been implemented.

Blümel said he now knows the allegations after a conversation with the public prosecutor's office, "these can be cleared up in a few words." Apparently, it is about potential party donations of the gambling company Novomatic to the ÖVP: "No donations from Novomatic were accepted," Blümel stressed.

Lee Jae-yong, executive of South Korea’s giant Samsung group, was sentenced to 30 months in prison and sent to jail on Monday. He was found guilty of bribery involving the country’s former president Park Geun-hye, who is already behind bars.

Initially, in 2017, Lee was sentenced to five years in jail, but Lee was released from jail the following year after an appeal court decided that the bribes paid were significantly smaller than previously thought. The case wound its way all the way up to the South Korean Supreme Court, which, in 2019, ordered the retrial.

The mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Marcelo Crivella, was arrested this morning in a joint operation by the MP-RJ (Rio de Janeiro Public Prosecutor's Office) and the Civil Police.

The action that led to Crivella's arrest is an unfolding of Operation Hades, launched in March, which investigates a supposed bribe payment scheme for the release of contracts from Rio's City Hall, called the "HQ of the Bribe".

Crivella gave a quick statement to journalists. "I was the mayor who most fought corruption in Rio de Janeiro's City Hall," he said, adding that he now expects "justice."

Chico Rodrigues, Jair Bolsonaro's deputy leader in the senate, was caught by the Brazilian Federal Police with R$30,000 (€4,572) concealed between his clenched buttocks. The police raid Wednesday was part of an operation against the misappropriation of public funds for fighting Covid-19.

Rodrigues, a Senator for the state of Roraima, released a statement claiming "I have a clean background and a respectable life. I’ve never been involved in any kind of scandal."

The Congress of the Republic did not reach the 87 votes necessary to vacate President Martín Vizcarra on the grounds of permanent moral incapacity. The motion to remove the president had 32 votes in favour, 78 votes against and 15 abstentions.

In the morning, the head of state attended the plenary session, where he assured that the audios that involve him have not been verified and that they will be made available to the Public Ministry.

The Constitutional Court of Peru refused to suspend the impeachment process of President Martín Vizcarra As a consequence of this decision, the president or his lawyer should appear before Congress this Friday to defend themselves before the legislators vote on whether to impeach him.

Marianella Ledesma, the president of the Constitutional Court, told local radio that judges had voted by five to two to reject an urgent petition by Vizcarra asking that Congress suspend debate on whether to impeach him for "moral incapacity."

The Congress of Peru voted to admit the impeachment process against the President Martín Vizcarra. There were 65 votes in favour, 36 against and 24 abstentions.

After the admission, the plenary set for September 18 the debate of the motion. President Martín Vizcarra, or his lawyer, may appear to give his defense, and his dismissal requires 87 votes according to the parliamentary regulations.

The Congress is investigating government contracts awarded to singer Richard Cisneros worth $49,500, and the links between Cisneros and Vizcarra.

The Brazilian Superior Court of Justice (STJ) determined Friday the immediate removal of Rio de Janeiro Governor Wilson Witzel from the post due to irregularities in health contracts. Witzel is also prohibited access to state government facilities and his communication with officials and use of services.

The governor and eight other people, including the First Lady Helena Witzel, were also denounced by the Attorney General's Office for corruption.

Witzel tweeted "The defence of Governor Wilson Witzel receives with great surprise the decision to step down, taken in a monocratic manner and with such seriousness. The lawyers are awaiting access to the content of the decision to take the appropriate measures."

The former soccer player Ronaldinho Gaúcho was released, after being arrested in March on the grounds of using false documentation to enter Paraguay. Ronaldinho will now travel back to Brazil.

The Prosecutor's Office announced that Ronaldinho did not participate in the manufacturing plan for the false Paraguayan passports and identity cards that were seized from him. Of his brother, prossecutors have said that "there are no indications that he has personal traits or criminal behavior that in a field of regulated freedom endangers society."

The Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said Sunday to a journalist that his "wish is to punch you in the mouth".

Bolsonaro stated after being questioned by the "O Globo" newspaper reporter about money transferred by an ally to the First Lady Michelle Bolsonaro.

The money transfers, by Flávio Bolsonaro's former adviser Fabrício Queiroz, to Michelle Bolsonaro were made from 2011 and 2016 and totalled R$72,000. Queiroz's wife transfered another R$17,000 to the first lady in 2011.

Actress Lori Loughlin was sentenced Friday to two months in prison for her role in the college admissions scandal. She will also serve two years of supervised release during which she must perform 100 hours of community service and pay a fine of $150,000.

Loughlin's husband, Mossimo Giannulli, was sentenced to five months in prison, a $250,000 fine, two years of supervised release and 250 hours of community service.

The couple must surrender to the US Bureau of Prisons before 2 p.m. on November 19.

The Spanish royal palaced confirmed that former king Juan Carlos I has been living in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) since August 3. His whereabouts have been unknown since he left Spain amid a corruption investigation.

The finances of the former king are under scrutiny. Juan Carlos denies any wrongdoing and has said he is available if prosecutors need to interview him.

A Deutsche Bank spokesperson confirmed that the bank has launched an internal investigation into Rosemary Vrablic, the longtime personal banker of Donald J. Trump and Jared Kushner.

After Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner declared in a financial disclosure report on Friday that they've received between $1 and $5 million from Bergel 715 in 2019, an investigation has been launched into Rosemary Vrablic. Deutsche Bank is looking to determine if she had acted improperly by buying an apartment from Bergel 715 Associates in 2013 together with two colleagues.

According to the original reporting by the New York Times, neither Vrablic nor her colleagues did know about Kushner having an ownership stake in the company at the time they bought the apartment.

Swiss special prosecutor Stefan Keller opened a criminal case against FIFA president Gianni Infantino over meetings with former attorney general Michael Lauber. The prosecutors have found indications of criminal conduct related to the meetings between the two men.

Lauber offered his resignation after it was found that the prosecutor had tried to hide a meeting with the FIFA head while his office was investigating FIFA-related corruption.

Infantino released a statement insisting that meeting Lauber is "perfectly legitimate and it’s perfectly legal."

FIFA also said it would cooperate fully with the investigation.

The Government of Japan has formally requested the U.S. State Department to extradite Michael Taylor and his son, Peter Taylor, accused of helping Carlos Ghosn flee the country. Ghosn, the former CEO of Nissan Motor, fled Japan in December after claims of financial misconduct.

Michael Taylor, a former Green Beret, and Peter Taylor were arrested in Harvard, Massachusetts, on May 20 at the Japanese Governments request.

The former French prime minister François Fillon and his wife, Penelope Fillon, were sentenced to jail for embezzling public funds. The conservative politician was found guilty of paying his wife and two of the couple’s children €1.156 million for work they never did as parliamentary aides.

He was sentenced to five years in prison, three of them suspended, and to pay a €375,000 fine. She was given a three-year suspended term.