Friday, 29 April 2011 12:25 Kathryn Thompson

http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/15946-captured-drug-trafficker-could-be-key-to-soccer-money-laundering.html

An alleged Colombian drug trafficker captured in Argentina could be the key to investigations into a money laundering operation that ran through the Independiente Santa Fe soccer club in Bogota, local media reported.

Police say that suspected drug trafficker Ignacio Alvarez Meyendorff, alias "Nacho," captured in Buenos Aires airport last Sunday, is part of an international narco-traffickers board who managed to infiltrate the Bogota soccer club.

Argentinean authorities arrested Nacho just 10 days after the U.S. indicted him on drug trafficking charges. Before Argentina carry out the extradition request, Colombian authorities will have a chance to interview him over financial movements in the soccer club.

Nacho, who had lived in Buenos Aires since 2005, is reportedly an ex-member of the notorious Norte del Valle Cartel and is also accused of organizing the shipment of cocaine in narco-submarines from Colombia.

Insight Crime reported that "Nacho" is accused of working alongside powerful drug traffickers including Luis Agustin Caicedo Velandia, alias "Lucho," and Daniel "El Loco" Barrera. This organization, dubbed the "El Dorado Cartel," has also been described as a drug-trafficking "board of directors," who are thought to ship up to eight tons of cocaine a month to Europe and the U.S.