BERN: Costas Takkas, a close associate of disgraced ex-CONCACAF president Jeffrey Webb, has been extradited from Switzerland to the United States to face charges in the FIFAGate corruption case.

Now only Nicaraguan Julio Rocha remains in Swiss detention of the original seven men arrested in the infamous raid on the Baur au Lac hotel in May last year.

A statement from the Swiss Federal Office of Justice said the former secretary-general of the Cayman Islands Football Association, a British citizen, was handed over in Zurich to two US police officers who escorted him on a flight to New York.

Takkas was one of 14 soccer officials and sports marketing executives indicted by the United States last year on bribery, money laundering and wire fraud charges involving more than $200m.

He was one of the original ‘Zurich Seven’ arrested on the eve of FIFA Congress last May. The FOJ approved Takkas’s extradition in October and an appeal was rejected on March 3.

A similar appeal has also been rejected in the case of Rocha, a former president of the Nicaraguan Football Federation and the last remaining FIFA official in Swiss custody.

The FOJ added: “This decision is not yet legally binding as Rocha has 10 days in which to lodge an appeal with the Federal Supreme Court.”

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