Agents estimate the scheme’s profits were about $3 million.
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A senior Olympic executive from Ireland was taken to a hospital Wednesday after police came to his beachfront hotel to arrest him as part of an investigation into ticket scalping.
Mr Hickey was elected head of the European Olympic Committees in 2006 and has been in charge of the Olympic Council of Ireland since 1989.
Hickey’s involvement was through Ireland’s Olympic committee, which police said helped transfer tickets to an unauthorized vendor who would set high fees and disguise the transaction as a hospitality package.
The Olympic Council of Ireland said Hickey chose to “step aside temporarily” as an IOC member and from all his other Olympic positions “until this matter is fully resolved”.
Hickey has temporarily stepped down as an executive board member of the International Olympic Committee, as president of the European Olympic Committee and as vice-president of the Association of National Olympic Committees.
“Mr. Hickey will of course continue to cooperate and assist with all ongoing enquiries”, the Irish body said in a statement.
The OCI said Hickey, its president, was stepping aside from all his Olympic functions until the matter was fully resolved, and was being replaced by William O’Brien.
When officers went to his hotel room on Wednesday morning they found his wife there with his Olympic credentials.
Police have also obtained court orders for the preventative detention of three suspects, all directors of Pro 10 Sports Management, the Irish-accredited seller of Olympic tickets which police believe diverted the tickets to THG.
Brazilian police say that he tried to avoid arrest by escaping into an adjacent hotel room being used by his son and took ill shortly afterwards.
Police said Hickey would be taken for questioning once he was able to leave hospital and would then be held in the Brazilian prison system. An online video, credited to ESPN, showed Hickey being apprehended and led away in a white bathrobe.
Mr Hickey was transferred to hospital, but a judge ordered the 71-year-old must be moved to prison once discharged. He remains in the hospital under police custody.
Hickey was a member of the IOC’s coordination commission for the Rio Games, the body in charge of overseeing preparations for the first Olympics held in South America. He has served on the policy-making executive board since 2012.
International Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Adams said the allegations concerned 1,000 tickets out of a total of 6.5 million that were made available for the Rio games.
Adams said the allegations concerned 1,000 tickets out of a total of 6.5 million that were made available for the Rio games.
Hickey, who also heads up the Olympic Committee of Ireland, is alleged to have passed on tickets for illicit resale at heavily inflated prices.
“Today’s arrest shows that the law must be followed”, top police investigator Ricardo Barbosa said after a news conference.
If officials being arrested on ticket-scalping charges at an worldwide sports event in Brazil sounds familiar that’s because it happened at the 2014 World Cup.
Officers executed a warrant to detain him on suspicion that he was aware that tickets from the OCI had ended up with THG Sports, a company not accredited to sell Olympic tickets.
His arrest comes after police last week detained a director of worldwide sports hospitality company THG Sports, Kevin Mallon, and a translator employed by the company, alleging that they could have made 10 million reais ($3 million) from buying tickets and reselling them at a higher price.
His arrest comes in the wake of a Director of an authorised re-seller THG Sport of London, Kevin James Mallon, being arrested on the day of the opening ceremony for holding over 800 exclusive guest passes for illicit resale for up to almost $8,000 each. Mallon was arrested along with a local employee who was working as an interpreter.
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THG Group is owned by Marcus Evans Group, which also controls English soccer club Ipswich Town.
