The secretary general of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) is the subject of an investigation by Swiss justice for alleged acts of financial embezzlement but affirmed Thursday that the transfers of funds concerned were “legitimate”.
The investigation targeting Veron Mosengo-Omba, who has dual Congolese and Swiss nationality, was opened in the canton of Fribourg.
In a press release published on the social network They correspond to “salaries and bonuses” that he has received from the African Confederation since he held the position of secretary general.
The name of Mosengo-Omba, a close friend of FIFA president Gianni Infantino, was revealed on Wednesday by the investigative media Gotham City. The site specializing in financial crimes and economic crime relies on a decision of the Federal Criminal Court rendered on September 13. The identity of the incriminated person does not appear there but he is designated as being secretary general of an organization with its headquarters in Egypt.
According to this court decision, which the CAF general secretary tweeted early Thursday, the Money Laundering Communication Office (MROS) contacted Friborg prosecutors last February to inform them that the general secretary has “on several occasions obtained bonuses much higher than the maximum set in his employment contract (…) and received all of these bonuses and salaries on a variety of Swiss accounts”.
“In addition,” adds MROS, “we were able on several occasions to identify a mechanism of transfers between personal accounts and outflows of funds in the form of cash withdrawals, hindering any possibility of tracing the use of said funds.”
“These different elements (…) constitute a bundle of clues establishing suspicions of acts of unfair management,” concludes this body attached to the Federal Police Office.
Reacting on …) come from salaries and bonuses that I have received from CAF since I held the position of secretary general of this institution. “They were carried out with complete transparency,” he adds.
“Nevertheless, and because it is in my interest that the question be clarified quickly and definitively, I have informed the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the canton of Friborg of my availability to respond to any request and to provide it with all the information it requires. could wish for,” he continues.
Chaired by South African Patrice Motsepte, the Confederation of African Football, which brings together 54 federations, is fighting to improve its image, tarnished by multiple allegations of corruption. Its previous president, Ahmad Ahmad, was suspended in 2020 for financial embezzlement.
The Swiss daily Le Temps wrote Thursday that Mosengo-Omba fled the current Democratic Republic of Congo in 1980 and that he studied law at the University of Friborg with the current president of Fifa, Gianni Infantino, with whom he is a relative.
