Hickey’s lawyer in Dublin did not respond to an email from Reuters requesting comment.
Advertisement
On August 21, Brazilian police said that they completed mandates for the search and apprehension of the passports of three members of the OCI.
Police are blocking Ireland’s top four Olympic executives from leaving Brazil as their ticket scalping investigation expanded with a raid on the team on the final day of the Rio de Janeiro Games. The most high profile of those arrested include Hickey, as well as Kevin Mallon of THG Sports, a hospitality company.
He and Marcus Evans, the owner of ticket distributor THG are facing charges relating to ticket touting as well as a charge of criminal association.
Police investigator Ricardo Barbarosa said: “The connection between the two is very clear”.
“The police took possession of their passports along with their phones and laptops”.
Warrants were also issued for the seizure of passports belonging to FAI chief executive and OCI vice president John Delaney, acting OCI president Willie O’Brien and personal assistant Linda O’Reilly. But they were not in Brazil at the time of the court order.
“We are continuing the investigation into the worldwide scheme of ticket scalping”, Rio police said Sunday after a raid on Ireland’s office at the athletes’ village.
PRO10, Brazilian police said, was set up as a substitute for THG, effectively rerouting tickets originally intended for the OCI, and not meant for sale, to the other company.
Hickey and others were behind the large-scale touting of Olympic tickets.
Police seized tickets for the Olympics from a hotel a week ago, some of which were part of Ireland’s allocation. Like Hickey, PRO10 and THG both deny any wrongdoing.
Earlier, the OCI said it will not pay Hickey’s legal fees if he is convicted of the offences for which he is being held.
It is understood their names were mentioned by Hickey in his evidence given to the police, although the three are not believed to still be in Rio. Henihan has since received his ID back and was allowed to leave the country. The charges carry a maximum of seven years in jail on conviction. Their statement reads: “Mr Hickey did not try to escape as informed by the police”. Those three people, however, have already left Brazil.
“His wife was took [taken] by surprise with nearly 10 men standing on her door at 6am, and panicked”.
No arrests have been made but the officials have agreed to go to police stations for questioning.
After learning the hard way that Rio is not a seller’s market, Hickey remains in custody in the host city.
Advertisement
She told the Independent “There is a queue and he’s in the queue just like anyone else, there is no fast-tracking…”
