José Lázaro Margulies (born 12 August 1939), is a Brazilian businessman who was convicted of organized crime, money laundering and fraud charges relating to the

2015 FIFA corruption case In 2015, United States federal prosecutors disclosed cases of corruption by officials and associates connected with the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the governing body of association football, futsal and beach so ...

Early life

José Margulies was born in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

, Argentina and immigrated to Brazil at a young age, where he worked for more than twenty years managing sales and marketing rights related to sports competitions.

FIFA's fraud case

In May 2015, Margulies was one of the

FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...

executives accused by the

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

of various corruption offenses during the

, which led to the arrest of executives by Swiss police at the Hotel Baur au Lac in

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

. On June 2, 2015,

Interpol The International Criminal Police Organization – INTERPOL (abbreviated as ICPO–INTERPOL), commonly known as Interpol ( , ; stylized in allcaps), is an international organization that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and crime cont ...

issued an arrest warrant against Margulies and other FIFA businessmen and executives involved in the FIFA's corruption case who had fled justice. In November 2015, Margulies was convicted of

organized crime Organized crime is a category of transnational organized crime, transnational, national, or local group of centralized enterprises run to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally thought of as a f ...

money laundering Money laundering is the process of illegally concealing the origin of money obtained from illicit activities (often known as dirty money) such as drug trafficking, sex work, terrorism, corruption, and embezzlement, and converting the funds i ...

and fraud. He agreed to forfeit more than $9.2 million. In April 2016, a U.S. Federal Court released Margulies's November 2015 testimony in which he pleaded guilty to corruption and agreed with the prosecution about fining and recovering millions of dollars. José Margulies acknowledged his role as an intermediary in transfers of bribe money to sports executives. In January 2020, Margulies was sentenced by the Eastern District Court of New York to a two-year probationary period. Judge Pamela K. Chen stated that Margulies had committed a serious crime and that this had contributed to questioning the credibility of professional football, but considered it a mitigating circumstance to repent of his deed and to cooperate with the court.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Margulies, Jose Living people Argentine emigrants to Brazil Businesspeople from Buenos Aires 1939 births Brazilian criminals Fraudsters