On the run: Fifa partner executive flees ticket sales arrest
Englishman leaves in hurry through the hotel’s back door and is considered a fugitive, say police
An executive from the World Cup’s hospitality services firm escaped out the back door of his plush Rio de Janeiro hotel on Thursday to avoid arrest on charges of illegally selling tickets, authorities said.
Police launched a manhunt for Raymond Whelan, a British director of Fifa partner company Match Services, accusing him of fleeing the beachfront Copacabana Palace Hotel after a judge ordered him and 10 other suspects to be held in detention.
“The Englishman fled through the hotel’s back door and is considered a fugitive,” said Rio police, just three days before Sunday’s Germany-Argentina final at the Maracana Stadium.
“We saw him in [security] footage leaving in a hurry,” said Fabio Barucke, the case’s lead investigator, adding that Whelan had fled an hour before police arrived.
Brazilian TV showed footage of Whelan, wearing a blue shirt, walking with another man who points to him to sit on a chair near the service exit before he left the hotel, which is heavily guarded and houses top Fifa officials.
Whelan is accused of being involved with a scalping network that has sold thousands of tickets worth millions of dollars, going back to the 2002 World Cup.