The United States Treasury accused Medellin-based soccer club Envigado of laundering money for a drug trafficking group this Wednesday. According to the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, the soccer club, owned by Juan Pablo Upegui Gallego, worked together with the crime syndicate Oficina de Envigado to cover up drug trafficking money through the club’s balance sheets.
The Treasury’s announcement comes after ten years of investigations, including the collection of testimonies from paramilitaries and narco-traffickers, to collect the necessary evidence against the soccer team, Upegui Gallego and others involved. The club and its associates have been placed on the U.S. “kingpin list,” which prohibits any financial transaction with U.S. citizens and freezes the assets of those involved. A total of eight members of the syndicate, which was founded by Pablo Escobar, were blacklisted.
“The Oficina de Envigado has played a significant role in large-scale drug trafficking and money laundering activities, and this action […] will strike at the financial core of this violent criminal network and impede its efforts to operate in the legitimate financial system,” said Adam Szubin, the director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control.
Envigado is not the first soccer club to be blacklisted by the U.S. Treasury. In 1999, the club America de Cali was listed.
