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Thursday November 26, 2009

Former officials charged with laundering drug money

BOGOTA: Eleven former officials of Colombia’s Independiente Medellin were charged on Tuesday with using the club to launder drug money.

Among those charged were Rodrigo Tamayo, club president in 1998-2000 and 2004, Tamayo’s wife, Dolly Cardenas, and two other former presidents, Mario de J. Valderrama and Luis Fernando Jimenez. Conviction carries a prison term of six to 15 years.

Prosecutor Cesar Velez, using estimates from the club’s former auditor Juan Bautista Avalos Salgar, estimated Tamayo laundered US$4.6mil during his terms as president.

Avalos Salgar said one way of laundering money would be to sell a player for, say US$100, but enter the transaction on the books as US$1,000. This means the extra US$900 entered on the books was money gained allegedly through drug trafficking. — AP

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