Whilst Caymanian Canova Watson was just getting used to 7 years life locked up in a cell with bars in prison, his mate Caymanian Jeffery Webb, was enjoying a lavish party at his prison – his luxurious home in Georgia. Webb is under house arrest there – a home, according to Watson’s trial, we Caymanians paid for.

Watson throughout his trial placed the blame squarely on everyone else especially his good buddy Webb who has also been charged with fraud and money laundering offences for his role in the conspiracy regarding the CarePay hospital payment system contract that Watson was charged with. Watson only escaped the charge of money laundering.

Now CONCACAF (The Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football) who Webb was President, have issued a Complaint for Damages against Defendants Elmore Sports Group Ltd, Carton Tours Inc., Gant Travel Ltd, David G. Elmore, and Daniel L. Gamba, wherein the name of Webb is very prominent and mentions also Watson and Bruce Blake, the latter being the current President of the Cayman Islands Football Association (CIFA). The other prominent name in the Complaint is Enrique Sanz who was General Secretary of CONCACAF.

The Complaint has been filed accusing the Defendants of “fraudulent, unfair, and unlawful business practices. Those practices include maintaining a clandestine, kickback-based, and parasitic relationship with two of CONCACAF’s former executives”, Webb and Sanz, “in which Cartan, Webb, and Sanz illicitly enriched themselves by raiding CONCACAF coffers without the knowledge of CONCACAF’s executive committee or other members of the CONCACAF staff.

“Defendants were to provide travel, accommodation and event planning services to CONCACAF for CONCACAF’s many events and meetings. The logistical expense involved to move teams throughout numerous venues, for example, was the largest category of expense CONCACAF had to incur.”

Webb and Sanz awarded Cartan an exclusive arrangement to provide the logistic services required for all of its events and meetings. “But there was no RFP process, no CONCACAF staff with expertise in travel logistics were involved in the selection of or negotiations with Cartan, and no approval from CONCACAF’s Executive Committee was ever obtained.

“Instead, Webb and Sanz engaged in their typical modus operandi of obtaining kickbacks from large vendors wishing to do business with CONCACAF, and Cartan was more than happy to oblige them, because Defendants acquired an outrageously lucrative arrangement for themselves.”

“Defendant Cartan’s improper conduct was intentional, deceptive and designed to benefit themselves to the detriment of CONCACAF. This conduct ranged from overrunning cost projections to gerrymandering invoices to outright lies”.

“As a consequence of this commercial bribery scheme, CONCACAF has been significantly damaged, and it is entitled to restitution of the illicit overpayments and profits paid to Cartan and payments made to Webb and Sanz, as well as to an award of punitive damages as a message to Cartan and others that they cannot get
away with victimizing sports organizations like CONCACAF, its member soccer associations most of which depended on CONCACAF for a large portion of their funding, and indeed, all of the soccer fans who at the end of the day are also victims of Cartan’s misconduct. CONCACAF therefore seeks compensatory and punitive damages in an amount to be determined at trial, but not less than $50 million.”

“In 2012, after Jack Warner resigned as CONCACAF’s President following revelations regarding his numerous self-serving and corrupt schemes, Webb was elected as President and Sanz was appointed General Secretary. Both promised to usher in a new era of transparency and reform for CONCACAF. In keeping with their promise of reform, Webb and Sanz established an Integrity Committee to investigate and provide recommendations with respect to corporate governance and other issues to address past misconduct of the former President and General Secretary. To that end, Webb and Sanz were also cognizant of the efforts that were undertaken to conduct the investigation, including the collection and review of CONCACAF financial records and communications, including emails.

“Webb and Sanz, however, never intended to practice what they preached. They used the Integrity Committee investigation and pronouncements of reforms to cloak their misconduct from the ExCo and CONCACAF staff.”

“Webb and Sanz, who received substantial, personal benefits from Cartan over the course of Cartan’s parasitic relationship with CONCACAF. Webb and Sanz were experts at creating kickback and bribery schemes, and their relationship with Cartan, involving an arrangement generating tens of millions of dollars, was no exception. Cartan’s scheme with Webb and Sanz was well outside the bounds of a legitimate business agreement, arranging a flow of excessive and unreasonable funds from CONCACAF to Cartan, and in turn, providing Webb and Sanz with kickbacks. Cartan’s unlawful and clandestine scheme was fraudulent from its inception in 2012, and secured a staggering $40 million of business from CONCACAF generating not less than $10 million in illicit profits, payments and other overcharges to CONCACAF during the nearly three years they were able to keep the scam alive.

“In 2009, Cartan lost a large source of income when the US Olympic Committee denied their bid for the US ticket resale market for the 2012 London Olympics, according to articles in the press. Cartan could not rely on getting this lucrative future business from the U.S Olympic Committee in the near future. Upon information and belief, Cartan was unsuccessful in finding a replacement for the lost U.S. Olympic Committee business. So it had to look for new opportunities, but those opportunities did not come by often, and, upon information and belief, Cartan did not find anything close to the U.S. Committee arrangement until 2012—when it found CONCACAF.

“Cartan sent Gamba to the 2012 London Olympics. Gamba was not Executive Vice President at that time, but an employee whose major function was to host guests at the “Casa Cartan” hospitality tent, where he posed for photos and resold pairs of tickets to particular sporting events. Gamba managed to resell some of these tickets to Bruce Blake and Canover Watson two Cayman Island Football Association (“CIFA”) officials attending the Olympics with Webb, who also was CIFA President at the time and their close personal friend. CIFA is a CONCACAF member association.

“After meeting Watson, Gamba persistently emailed him and Blake to arrange a meeting to discuss a purported “partnership” with Cartan’s Chairman, Elmore. In August 2012, Watson and Webb met with Gamba at the May Fair Hotel while in London. As a result of this secret meeting, Cartan was on its way toward securing all of CONCACAF’s travel arrangement business for not only their first event, but for every major CONCACAF event and competition for the foreseeable future. On October 23, 2012, Sanz and Gamba met again, and agreed in an email that CONCACAF would use Cartan for all their needs “from Staff travel to ExCo Meetings, committee meetings, Congress and Gold Cup.” Although Sanz purportedly confirmed CONCACAF’s willingness to enter into such an arrangement with Cartan, no other CONCACAF staff or ExCo members were informed of the meetings, or such an arrangement at or before the time this apparent commitment was made, even though this arrangement involved millions of dollars with respect to the largest annual category of expense CONCACAF incurred.

“Gamba was subsequently rewarded for securing the CONCACAF business with a promotion at Cartan to Executive Vice President that was announced shortly after the October 23, 2012 meeting.

“In early November, after this meeting, Sanz began to inform certain staff members that he had retained a new service to provide logistical services to CONCACAF. At that time, Ted Howard, CONCACAF’s Deputy General Secretary, was told for the first time about the retention of Cartan for travel management. On November 13, 2012, Gamba noted in an email to Sanz that they should get a “contract” signed, and told Sanz that Watson (a man currently on trial for fraud as the result of kickbacks associated with his own business dealings in the Cayman Islands in which he is alleged to have diverted CIFA funds for Webb’s personal use) was working on the agreement with Cartan’s lawyers. However, no such written contract in fact existed, at least before a copy of a purported agreement was finally provided to CONCACAF staff in September 2014. Moreover Watson, while a personal friend of Webb, was neither a lawyer, nor a person with any relevant experience to make him competent enough to handle legitimate negotiations regarding travel, accommodation or event planning services. Rather, Watson and Webb were experts at creating schemes for kickbacks and commercial bribes in exchange for lucrative contracts.

“When Sanz emailed Webb on November 15, 2012 concerning the significant logistics to be worked out between Cartan and CONCACAF, Webb cautioned: “lots to discuss before moving forward.” Upon information and belief, what needed to be more firmly discussed “before moving forward” were the details of the scheme. As with the other lucrative financial agreements that personally and illicitly benefitted Webb and Sanz, the parties needed to discuss the details of the kickback scheme that would ensure Cartan would arrange for kickbacks and/or other improper remuneration to Webb and Sanz before Cartan began its work in earnest.

“ On December 3, 2012, Watson helped facilitate a meeting between Webb, Elmore and Gamba, to discuss the terms of their deal behind closed doors before “moving forward.” Shortly after the meeting, Sanz announced Cartan’s appointment as CONCACAF’s exclusive logistics agency to CONCACAF’s staff more broadly. Upon information and belief, the final terms of the arrangement to provide kickbacks and/or other improper remuneration to Webb and Sanz had been agreed to and/or confirmed at that meeting.”

“Cartan made a mysterious $600,000 loan to CIFA, the member association located in Webb’s hometown of Grand Cayman and where Webb was still acting president and Watson was treasurer. Public audits revealed that the loans were originally documented as unsecured when they were dispersed from a Panamanian bank account owned by Cartan on December 31, 2013. The Term Loan Agreement dated December 31, 2013 was between CIFA and Cartan International Management, Inc. for a total of $600,000, signed by Bruce Blake on behalf of CIFA, and Irena Abrego de Espinosa on behalf of Cartan. According to public internet sources, Ms. Abrego de Espinosa was a “subscribtor” – or person required to be present to register a company under Panamanian corporate law – of the Cartan affiliate in Panama responsible for extending the loan to CIFA.

“Defendant Elmore made this payment via Cartan to CIFA at the request of Webb and Watson. Upon information and belief, this payment was arranged in part to ensure that Defendants’ scheme with Webb and Sanz would continue into the foreseeable future.”

Cartan was not alone in providing a significant sum to Webb’s former association. Forward Sports, the same vendor that met with Webb and Sanz during the same week as Cartan in the fall of 2012, the same vendor that attended the Summit with Cartan, also extended a $600,000 loan to CIFA, on the same day as Cartan,
signed by the same Irena Abrego de Espinosa who signed the loan document on behalf of Cartan. Notably, Forward Sports is also a company implicated in the Indictment and Superseding Indictment as one possessing Panamanian bank accounts used to effectuate several bribe payments received by Webb.

“These transactions caused CIFA’s auditor to refuse to provide CIFA with a clean audit, and it has been reported that CIFA provided information about these transactions to the authorities in the Cayman Islands, who are presently conducting an investigation on those transactions as a result.”

“In August 2015 news reports surfaced revealing the suspicious loans made to CIFA from two private companies, which CONCACAF since has confirmed were Cartan and Forward Sports. Despite Cartan’s denial of any association with a bank account in Panama, the audit report disclosed that the money was wired from their bank account located in Panama, where Cartan also had an office at the time.”

The actual document the above was transcribed from has a total of 43 pages and I have only taken the portions that mention Watson and Blake.

After reading the whole document my stomach knotted and twisted at the way Webb, a man I had once respected, went to such lengths to enrich himself from the game of football. He took money meant for the enhancement of football in this small country. And he called himself a Caymanian.