The FIFA Dawn Raid - Hotel Baur au Lac
At dawn on 27 May 2015, plainclothes Swiss police collected room keys at this grand lakeside hotel and arrested seven FIFA officials for the United States, two days before the FIFA presidential vote, in a bribery case that ended with guilty pleas and prison terms in Brooklyn.
About this place
Behind its gates on Talstrasse, the Baur au Lac has been Zurich's most discreet address since Johannes Baur, a baker from Vorarlberg in Austria, opened it beside the lake in 1844; his descendants still own it, and its private park runs down to the water along the old Schanzengraben moat. That discretion was shattered at dawn on 27 May 2015, when more than a dozen plainclothes Swiss police officers collected room keys at reception and arrested seven FIFA officials upstairs at the request of the United States, two days before the FIFA presidential election. In New York, fourteen people were charged with racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering over bribes and kickbacks of more than 100 million dollars for the media and marketing rights to football tournaments. The image of the day showed hotel porters holding up a white bedsheet to hide one official from the cameras. Police came back to the same hotel on 3 December 2015 for two more officials. In the end, CONCACAF president Jeffrey Webb pleaded guilty, and José Maria Marin and Juan Ángel Napout were convicted by a Brooklyn jury in December 2017 and sentenced to four and nine years in prison.
Key facts
- 7 officials arrested — Seven FIFA officials were arrested inside the Baur au Lac at dawn on 27 May 2015, two days before the FIFA presidential election.
- 100 million dollars — US prosecutors said the bribes and kickbacks paid for football media and marketing rights added up to more than 100 million dollars.
- 9 years in prison — Juan Ángel Napout, arrested in a second dawn raid at this same hotel in December 2015, was later sentenced to nine years in a US prison.