RIO DE JANEIRO — An illegal ticketing scandal tarnished the World Cup as teams are geared up for quarterfinals. Police probing an international scalping syndicate said Thursday thousands of illegally sold tickets worth millions of dollars were believed to have originated from a FIFA individual. The unnamed foreign national was staying at the luxury Copacabana Palace hotel, an official FIFA hotel during the World Cup, police commissioner Fabio Barucke said. The individual is thought to have funneled tickets to the black market with an intermediary in Match Hospitality, the official World Cup ticket agency, Barucke said. Police made 11 arrests Tuesday of people accused of selling tickets that may have been obtained through a contact at world football's governing body. Barucke explained the police investigation, dubbed “Operation Jules Rimet” after the former French FIFA president, had been undertaken in secret without contacting FIFA. However, following the arrests “we are now calling for FIFA's assistance to help us identify this FIFA person, a foreigner staying in the Copacabana Palace hotel,” Barucke said. A French-Algerian suspect, Mohamadou Lamine Fofana, was initially thought to be responsible for the scam, Barucke said. “But after his arrest we realized there was someone above him from FIFA with an intermediary at Match Hospitality,” the police official said. “We want to identify the last link in the chain, from the ticket touts at the stadiums, right through to those who are above Lamine Fofona and who passed the tickets on to him.” — Agencies
