For more than a decade, a sweeping operation to combat corruption in international football led by the US Department of Justice has shaken the body that governs the world’s most popular sport.
Federal prosecutors have won dozens of convictions and recovered millions of dollars in the protracted FIFA case. However, two of the most high-profile targets, father and son, Hugo Jinkis and Mariano Jinkis, escaped prosecutors. They have been accused of paying bribes to Latin American football officials in exchange for lucrative television and marketing rights, but have remained out of reach because Argentina has blocked extraditions since 2016.
It seemed unlikely that they would ever appear in an American court, where, if convicted, they could face a maximum sentence of years, if not decades, in prison.
But over the weekend, the two voluntarily boarded a commercial flight from Buenos Aires to New York, accompanied by their wives. And on Monday (18), Hugo Jinkis, 81, and Mariano Jinkis, 51, began negotiations for a possible plea deal with federal prosecutors in Brooklyn.
The negotiations had not been previously disclosed. They were confirmed to The New York Times by Francisco Castex, Mariano Jinkis’ lawyer.
Their arrival marks a surprising turn of events in the protracted FIFA case, which has seen no shortage of drama since it became public with the arrests of multiple directors of the world football governing body in Zurich on May 27, 2015.
It also comes weeks before the start of the World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico, and as international football faces persistent questions about corruption. On Monday, it was revealed that a whistleblower had filed a complaint with FIFA alleging that two officials of Conmebol, the confederation that governs South American football, had personally appropriated more than US$5 million in restitution funds collected from defendants convicted in the American criminal case and earmarked for the development of the sport.
For prosecutors, the Jinkis’ appearance offers a potential victory in a case that has lately been hampered by resources and the Trump administration. Those setbacks threatened to reverse years of work to eradicate the widespread corruption that reached the highest levels of the world’s most popular sport, including bribes to voters who determined the hosting of the World Cup.
In December, U.S. Attorney General D. John Sauer took the highly unusual step of asking for the dismissal of charges against two other defendants: a former Fox Corp. executive, Hernán López, and the sports marketing company Full Play Group, owned by the Jinkis. Both were convicted by a jury on two bribery-related charges in 2023 and were appealing their convictions to the Supreme Court.
Since the government filed its motion to dismiss, four other defendants convicted in the case have also requested that their charges be dropped.
Next week — precisely on the 11th anniversary of the Zurich operations — Judge Pamela K. Chen of the Eastern District of New York will hear arguments on whether to dismiss the charges against López and Full Play. That has raised concerns that the ambitious case, long a source of pride in the Brooklyn office, could be completely undone.
It’s unclear why the Jinkis agreed to come to New York now, nearly eleven years after they were indicted, or why prosecutors appear willing to cut a deal favorable to them. But their arrival goes against the general direction of a case that, by all measures, was coming to an end. If the fugitives agree to plead guilty, it would net prosecutors their first convictions since the 2023 trial.
Over the years, federal prosecutors have secured more than 30 convictions and hundreds of millions of dollars in the investigation, but have so far failed to confront the Jinkis, who they say were central players in a long-running scheme to use bribes to acquire rights to tournaments, including the Copa América, one of the world’s most prominent and popular sporting events.
