The Conmebol reported on Wednesday that the actions taken by the entity before the Prosecutor's Office of that European country have achieved the recovery of those amounts, whose destination will be resolved at the Congress that the maximum South American football organization will celebrate in November.
The organization added that to date, the amount restored to Conmebol from Switzerland, the United States, and Paraguay, the headquarters of the organization, amounts to more than $53 million dollars.
In that sense, the statement noted that in Paraguay, the amount already returned is about $16 million dollars, within the "strategy adopted by Conmebol that resulted in the return of this money by the heirs of Leoz", who died in 2019.
In the case of the United States, the figure is over $550,000 dollars.
Leoz died in August 2019 at the age of 91, after leading Conmebol between 1986 and 2013 and remaining under house arrest since May 2015 at his residence in Asuncion.
Leoz was involved in a judicial process with the Supreme Court of Justice of Paraguay, an organization through which he sought to avoid his extradition to the United States to be tried for corruption.
Between 2000 and 2015, nearly $130 million dollars were embezzled or transferred in suspicious operations from Conmebol accounts, according to the results of a forensic audit disclosed in the 67th ordinary Congress of the entity.
In November 2019, the resolution chamber of FIFA's Ethics Committee permanently disqualified Deluca by finding him guilty of bribery and violating the organization's Code of Ethics.
According to Conmebol's statement, the return of the sums contained in Leoz and Deluca's Swiss accounts is the result of the actions of the current presidency of Conmebol since 2016, led by Paraguayan Alejandro Dominguez, which began with a forensic audit.
"These actions changed the perception of the various judicial bodies, with Conmebol going from being considered a "criminal organization" (2015) to an "institution" victim "of its leaders," the statement said.
"This change gave Conmebol the possibility to request the restitution of the money stolen by various leaders involved in the judicial processes, known as the "FIFA GATE"," added the entity.
Historic achievement! Conmebol recovers around $37 million dollars from Leoz and Deluca in Swiss banks. We reaffirm our commitment to justice, transparency, and clear rules," wrote Dominguez on his Twitter account.