FORMER chairman of FC Barcelona, Sandro Rosell has been arrested along with four others on suspicion of money-laundering offences.
Properties have been raided in Barcelona itself and in two other Catalunya provincial capitals – Lleida and Girona – as well as in the Pyrénéen principality of Andorra, due to its preferential tax status.
A probe into illegal commissions paid for the audio-visual 'image' rights of the Brazilian national football team, laundered through 'front' companies based in tax havens led to the net closing in on the former chairman of the South American country's Football Federation, Ricardo Teixeira, and on Rosell.
The ex-Barça FC chair and Teixeira are said to have been the ringleaders of the multi-million tax-evasion scam, but the other suspects arrested in the early hours of this morning (Tuesday) have not yet been named.
Searches on homes and offices in Andorra and the three Catalunya cities continued at the time of publication, headed up by the National Police's Financial and Fiscal Crime Unit (UDEF), the regional Judicial Police, and the Guardia Civil.
The photograph shows Rosell being led into the National Court in Madrid.
