Insight - FIFA scandal exacerbates Canadian banks' Caribbean troubles

Scotiabank Mexico CEO Enrique Zorrilla (2nd L), Scotiabank Chief Marketing Officer John Doig (3rd L), President of CONCACAF Jeffrey Webb (3rd R), Mexican Football Federation (FEMEXFUT) President Justino Compean (2nd R), and Aaron Davidson (R), president of the sponsorship rights agency Traffic Sports USA, gesture during a joint presentation between Scotiabank and the CONCACAF at the Stock Exchange in Mexico City in a December 9, 2014 file photo. REUTERS/File

TORONTO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - An eyebrow-raising disclosure in the U.S. indictment of FIFA officials is that a representative of a Caribbean bank made it easy for one allegedly illegal transaction to be done by flying to New York to personally collect a check and then returned to deposit it in an account in the Bahamas.

This unusual courier service, which reduced the electronic trail on a $250,000 payment to former FIFA official Chuck Blazer in May 2011, was provided by an unnamed officer of Barbados-based CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank, the indictment shows. CIBC FirstCaribbean is a subsidiary of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Canada's fifth-largest bank.