Five of Colombia’s top league soccer teams are being investigated for allegedly laundering money for drug traffickers, the national police announced Friday.
Without specifying which clubs are suspected of involvement with the drug trade, national police chief General Oscar Naranjo told media that it wasn’t just Bogota team Santa Fe that is under investigation.
“There are at least four more investigations all over the country,” said Naranjo, adding that he hopes that the police investigations will “save Colombian soccer” which has long been implicated in money laundering for the country’s drug traffickers.
Earlier this week President Juan Manuel Santos vowed to rid Colombian soccer of any “macabre association between criminals and sport clubs.”
“Either we change soccer, or soccer is finished for us!” Santos said.
In October the Colombian Soccer Federation considered suspending Santa Fe soccer club over its suspected involvement in laundering drug money. In the same month the Prosecutor General’s Office announced it would investigate allegations that the auditor of Colombian soccer federation Fedefutbol who was murdered in July was the accountant for extradited paramilitary boss Salvatore Mancuso.