Mexico’s Márquez accused of aiding drug kingpin
Mexican soccer star Rafael Márquez Álvarez and several of his businesses have acted as fronts and held assets for a major drug trafficking organization, the U.S. Treasury Department said Wednesday after it added the player’s name to a list of people and entities that face financial penalties and possible forfeitures for such ties.
Márquez, who plays for the Mexican club Atlas and has represented Mexico at the past four World Cups, was placed on a Specially Designated Nationals list by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. Márquez appeared voluntarily in the Mexican Attorney General’s Office Wednesday to make a statement, the Attorney General’s Office said in a news release.
Márquez and nine businesses linked to him, including his soccer school and charitable foundation, were among the 22 individuals and 42 entities added to the list by the Treasury Department on Wednesday. All were accused of providing support to, or being under the control of, another Mexican national, Raúl Flores Hernández, and what the department called the “Flores drug trafficking organization.”
In March, Flores Hernández was indicted on a federal drug trafficking charge.
At a news conference at Atlas’ practice facility Wednesday, Márquez denied any connection to the drug trafficking organization and promised to cooperate with the authorities in the investigation. “I clarify that I have not now or ever participated in any of the organizations that have been mentioned,” he said.
The Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, better known as the Kingpin Act, was passed by Congress in 1999 and allows the Treasury Department to freeze the assets of foreign nationals it believes to be involved in international narcotics trafficking. According to a Treasury Department news release announcing Wednesday’s actions, all of Márquez’s assets “that are under U.S. jurisdiction or are in the control of U.S. persons” have been frozen.
The United States sees the act as an important tool to disrupt the finances of organized crime and drug trafficking groups, and to expose the vast web of dummy businesses that allow criminals to obscure and launder their ill-gotten gains. But defense lawyers and some people named to the list — which now totals more than 2,000 individuals and entities — have complained that it is rife with errors, and tarnishes reputations with scant evidence and no due process.
Márquez, 38, is one of Mexico’s greatest soccer players. A center back and defensive midfielder, he has appeared for his national team 142 times over the past 21 years and was Mexico’s captain at each of the past four World Cups. His club career has taken him to Europe, where he won four league titles and two Champions League trophies while playing for the Spanish powerhouse Barcelona, and to the United States, where he played two years with the Red Bulls of Major League Soccer.
The news was met with disbelief in Mexico. Márquez’s career in Barcelona was a source of pride for Mexican football fans, proof that the country produces world-class players. At the height of his career, his personal life was closely followed by Mexico’s celebrity magazines, and he appeared in commercials for everything from Gillette razors to a Mexican pension fund.