CONYERS - A top defendant arrested in this week’s FIFA soccer corruption scandal owns a house at 104 Ellis Drive in Conyers, and the federal government wants to seize the property, according to a Department of Justice indictment.
Jeffrey Webb is a FIFA vice president and the recently suspended head of CONCACAF, a powerful regional body overseeing soccer tournaments in North America, Central America and the Caribbean. He is among 14 people charged with massive corruption and bribery in FIFA, the Switzerland-based governing body for international soccer competitions, including the World Cup. He was arrested Wednesday during a FIFA meeting in Zurich for allegedly soliciting bribes of up to $3 million for soccer marketing, sponsorship and media rights deals.
Webb owns at least four metro Atlanta residential properties, according to the federal indictment, with the others in Loganville and Stone Mountain. It is unclear whether he lived in any of those homes, and his official online profiles describe him as a resident of his birthplace in the Cayman Islands.
His Conyers property is a single-family home on the dead-end Ellis Drive off of Sigman Drive, near the intersection with Ga. Hwy 20/Milstead Ave. According to county property records, Webb bought the house, which had been foreclosed on, in January 2013 for $64,000. In May 2013, he transferred it for no cost to Kosson Properties Limited, described as a Cayman Islands company in which Webb has “an interest.”
The indictment says a similarly named company, Kosson Ventures, is led by Costas Takkas, a former Cayman Islands soccer official and associate of Webb who is also charged with corruption. Takkas allegedly aided Webb’s corruption schemes, the indictment says.
Those alleged schemes included soliciting bribes and laundering money for marketing rights to various soccer events, including CONCACAF’s biannual Gold Cup tournament. Some Gold Cup rounds are slated to be held this July at Atlanta’s Georgia Dome.
One allegation is that Takkas acted as a go-between to deposit money in Georgia banks that Webb then used to purchase Stone Mountain property and to build a swimming pool at the Logansville home.
Federal prosecutors want to force Webb to forfeit those four Georgia houses, as well as several other properties he owns in Florida, alleging they are the profits or locations of criminal activity.
