RIO DE JANEIRO, July 3 — Brazilian authorities are investigating whether members of the Brazilian, Argentine and Spanish football federations were involved in the illegal sale of World Cup tickets, prosecutors said yesterday.

Police arrested 11 people on Tuesday accused of selling tickets that FIFA had handed out to sponsors, federations, players and non-governmental organisations.

“The group charged a lot of money for each game,” Marcos Kac, Rio de Janeiro prosecutor in charge of the investigation, told AFP.

“It was 1,000 tickets per game, with a basic price of €1,000 (RM4,376),” Kac said.

The band was led by an Algerian suspect identified as Mohamadou Lamine Fofana, who had been under investigation for three months, he said.

“He obtained tickets that were given by FIFA to football federations, players, operators, companies,” Kac said.

Nine of the suspects were arrested in Rio and two in Sao Paulo.

Some of the tickets that were seized belonged to the football federations of Brazil, Argentina and Spain.

“This is being investigated,” he said.

The crackdown led to the closure of three travel agencies suspected of being involved in illegal game ticket sales.

Authorities have arrested dozens of illegal ticket sellers outside stadiums around the country since the tournament started on June 12.

AFP journalists saw illegal ticket sales near stadiums. On Tuesday, scalpers were selling tickets to the Argentina-Switzerland last-16 game for US$1,500 (RM4,800). — AFP