Last official involved in FIFA scandal extradited to US

Former FIFA and Nicaraguan soccer official Julio Rocha exits following his hearing at the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse in the Brooklyn borough of New York, US, May 18, 2016. [Photo/Agencies]

GENEVA - The Swiss Federal Office of Justice (FOJ) reported Wednesday that former president of the Nicaraguan Football Federation Julio Rocha was extradited to New York Wednesday under escort of two US law enforcement officers who took charge of him at Zurich airport.

Rocha is the last of nine FIFA officials to be extradited after arrests were carried out in May and December last year in Switzerland following a crisis which shook the world football's governing body amid allegations of fraud, bribery and money laundering.

While the extraditions proceedings have now been concluded, FOJ indicated that legal assistance proceedings between Swiss and US authorities are still ongoing.

"Further to a US request for legal assistance of March 6, 2015, as well as four supplementary requests, the FOJ has had an extensive body of banking records obtained for the U.S. authorities," the office said in a statement.

"Based on eight partial final rulings, which were not challenged, the FOJ has been able to hand banking records over to the US authorities on a continuous basis since the end of December 2015," it added.

Pending appeals against an additional 18 partial final rulings, a further extensive collection of banking records should be made available to US authorities in June.

FOJ indicated that conforming to US requests for legal assistance, the FOJ has frozen approximately 80 million US dollars in 13 bank accounts.