Stand-in Irish Olympic president has passport seized

According to RTÉ and the Irish Times, the officials include OCI Chief Executive Stephen Martin, who is from Bangor, County Down.

He was detained by police in Rio and is now an inmate at the Bangu maximum security prison in Rio.

A source had earlier told Reuters that O’Brien’s passport had already been seized.

Hickey’s Rio-based solicitor Arthur Lavigne claimed he was being held illegally.

This is the latest revelation of the Olympic touting ticket fiasco.

“During the operation, Civil Police seized the passports of the three Irishmen, preventing them from leaving the country”, police said.

Hickey denied any involvement with THG before his arrest, and International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach said Mr. Hickey should be presumed innocent.

The highest-profile figure swept up by investigators is Hickey, the head of the umbrella organization for Europe’s Olympic bodies.

Long reign: Pat Hickey has been president of the OCI for 28 years.

Police arrived at the Rio office of the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) early on the last day of the Rio Games.

“This meeting is a meeting to find out what the present situation is as far as the OCI is concerned”, he said. No arrests were made during the search on Sunday.

The Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) said police had met some of its officials during the raids and asked them to appear at a police station for questioning on Tuesday.

“They agreed to do so”.

“The OCI had an allocation of unused official tickets in their offices which had been made available for athletes’ families and friends”, the OCI said.

“We are continuing the investigation into the global scheme of ticket scalping”, Rio police said. “There will be a press conference on Tuesday”, he said.

The raid comes days after the arrest of senior Olympic official Pat Hickey.

A retired judge is expected to be appointed this week to oversee that investigation – which Sports Minister Shane Ross says could take about 12 weeks to complete.

“His arrest has no legal support”.

Hickey, who temporarily stepped aside as the head of the European Olympic Committee and the Olympic Council of Ireland after his arrest, had an appeal for bail denied by a Brazilian judge.