[JURIST] Interpol [official website] on Wednesday issued “wanted person alerts” for six men having ties to the ongoing FIFA scandal [LAT backgrounder] on charges including racketeering, money laundering and corruption. The alerts are a notice and warning that the men may be arrested in any country to which they travel. The six men include two senior officials and four corporate executives. Two of the six, former vice president Jack Warner from Trinidad and former executive Nicolas Leoz from Paraguay, have already been arrested in their respective home countries. The other four men, Alejandro Burzaco from Argentina, Hugo and Mariano Jinkis from Argentina and Jose Marguiles from Brazil, are still at large. Burzaco and the two Jinkis men have allegedly paid more than USD $100 million in bribes for media rights to soccer matches. The alerts come only a day after the unexpected announcement [NYT report] by Sepp Blatter that he would resign as president of FIFA.

The FIFA corruption scandal broke last month when US prosecutors charged [JURIST report] 14 top FIFA officials with offenses including racketeering, money laundering and bribery, alleging that the men used partnerships with sports marketing executives to solicit more than $150 million in bribes and kickbacks to support various sites of FIFA World Cup events. The prosecutors claimed that at least some of the defendants, nine FIFA officials and five corporate executives, have participated in the scheme to enrich themselves for over two decades. FIFA has long been accused of corruption, but this is the largest case ever assembled against the organization in regards to those types of allegations. FBI Director James Comey stated [USA Today Report], “Undisclosed and illegal payments, kickbacks, and bribes became a way of doing business at FIFA.” An issue [Wired report] with the organization is that in its voting for a president and executive committee, each of the 209 member nations gets a single vote. Also, each country receives an equal share of FIFA’s revenues. Therefore, there is less incentive for the smaller, poorer countries to attempt to change any of the structure to the voting process.