Washington (AFP)
The main Israeli bank Hapoalim will pay more than 900 million dollars to the United States in exchange for dropping the prosecution in two separate files, one of which is linked to the corruption scandal at Fifa, the US Department of Justice.
The bank and its Swiss subsidiary have agreed to pay $ 30 million to the American authorities as part of the "Fifagate", but above all $ 874 million for a separate case of tax evasion.
In the first file, the bank admitted to having participated in the laundering of 20 million dollars in bribes paid to officials of the highest body of football between 2010 and 2015, and in particular to Luis Bedoya who chaired the federation Colombia football player and was a member of the FIFA executive committee.
Argentina-based sports marketing company Full Play Group, suspected of paying part of the bribes in exchange for TV rights to certain games, was charged on March 18, said the Ministry.
The American judicial authorities had opened legal proceedings in 2015 against several officials and partners of Fifa, mainly South American, which led to several sentences to prison terms. The scandal had brought down the heads of the organization.
In addition, Hapoalim admitted having helped Americans to hide from the tax authorities 7.6 billion dollars, by hiding them on more than 5,500 accounts in Switzerland and in Israel, within the framework of a second agreement called "deferred prosecution agreement" .
It is a mechanism through which a company recognizes elements that are alleged against it and undertakes not to commit similar offenses. In exchange, the authorities renounce prosecuting her in criminal proceedings.
In this context, it will pay $ 874 million, which, according to the Ministry of Justice, is the second largest sum ever recovered by the United States from a foreign bank in the context of its campaign launched in 2008 for fight tax evasion.
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