FIFA scandal: The search for 'fighter' Jack Warner

As we passed the fourth industrial complex en route from Port of Spain airport to the hotel, I was shaking my head. This just couldn't be right.

Sensing the consternation, my newest friend Ramesh -- a sage taxi driver if ever you met one -- jumped in unprompted.

"Most tourists get the ferry to Tobago. Trinidad is a place to do business. What brings you here?"

Our business, of course, was "Mr. Warner," as Trinidadians refer to arguably the island's most notorious resident.

My journey had started the previous week in Zurich after news broke of the arrests of a number of FIFA executives at dawn.

Sepp Blatter was re-elected. Sepp Blatter resigned. Each day there was a new development that has woven a tapestry of allegations and revelations to touch every continent on the planet.

Seemingly at the center of that tapestry was Warner. And despite his steadfast denial of any wrongdoing, there were countless questions that needed to be asked. CNN would do its best to do just that.

The hunt for FIFA's Jack Warner 02:41

Which was why we were getting a tour -- together with U.S.-based colleagues Robyn Curnow, Nicol Nicolson and Jose Armijo -- of Port of Spain's industrial estates.

The charges against Warner are extensive.

He resigned from the FIFA Executive Committee in 2011 after being accused of several counts of corruption in the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. However, after being banned from football administration worldwide, all investigations into those allegations were dropped.

All that changed when Warner was one of 14 executives charged by the U.S. Justice Department over alleged racketeering, wire fraud, money laundering and bribery. The U.S. has formally requested his extradition, and judicial proceedings in Trinidad have already begun.

As we crawled towards the city center, Ramesh put us on the phone to his daughter -- a local reporter, who in turn gave me two direct numbers for Warner.

As it turned out, they were the same as two I had been given by a colleague in London. The chances of them being genuine suddenly seemed much more likely.

Calls were made to both of the numbers. No answer, but messages were left nonetheless. A contact had also given us Warner's personal email address. Again, no reply to our request to talk to him.

Warner's business interests have spread throughout Trinidad, which provided other possible avenues of inquiry.

The 72-year-old owns a professional football team called Joe Public in the district of Tunapuna. He also has control of one of the island's newspapers, Sunshine, and owns a restaurant.

Ramesh also told us that Warner's house was located in the Five Rivers area of Arouca -- although we would have to sniff out which one it was.

Another possibility was Trinidad's Parliament. The day before we arrived, Warner -- a prominent opposition MP in Trinidad -- had been laughed at by some peers in the chamber after yet again vowing to "unleash an avalanche of evidence" to clear his name.

But this being a Saturday, he wouldn't be in Parliament for another 48 hours.

There was also Warner's political constituency of Chiguanas West. It was there that he had danced at a public rally only hours after being released from prison the previous week.