The captain of Mexico’s national football team was among 22 people sanctioned by the US treasury on Wednesday for alleged ties to drug trafficking.
Rafael Marquez Alvarez, the 38-year-old footballing hero of his country, was singled out for his links to Raul Flores Hernandez, a suspected drug trafficker who was indicted in California and Washington DC in March.
Marquez - the only player in the history of the sport to captain a team at four different World Cups - netted the vital goal in Mexico's 2-1 victory last November over the United States, leading to calls that he lead Mexico’s squad for next year’s World Cup in Russia, for a record fifth time.
He made his debut for Mexico’s national side over 20 years ago, aged 17, before going on to play for Monaco and Barcelona – winning the Champion’s League in 2006, the first ever Mexican to do so.
Mexico’s equivalent of David Beckham or Bobby Moore, “Rafa” is household name for his reputation as one of his country’s finest footballers, and for his film star looks. Previously married to Mexican actress Adriana Lavat, the couple separated in 2007, and in 2011 he married the model Jaydy Michel, ex-wife of Spanish singer Alejandro Sanz.
Since 2015 he has played for Atlas, a team in Guadalajara, where he began his career.
But on Wednesday the US froze all his US assets, and forbade US citizens from doing business with him.
Washington announced he was being targeted among a list of Flores’s family and business associates, plus a series of companies the US said were used to launder the proceeds of drug trafficking – among them a football club, casino, medical clinic, bars and a music label.
Besides Marquez, the US authorities said they had identified a popular Mexican singer, Julion Alvarez, as being a “front man” for Flores’s illicit funds.
Alvarez, known as “El Rey de la Taquilla” or the king of the box office for his ability to pack out Mexican stadiums, was photographed rafting on Monday through Sumidero Canyon, one of the most popular tourist sites in the state of Chiapas, with Enrique Pena Nieto, the president of Mexico.
Mr Pena Nieto published the photo of the pair of them rafting alongside Manuel Velasco, governor of Chiapas, on all his social media accounts. He has since deleted the images.
According to the US treasury, “both men have longstanding relationships with Flores Hernandez, and have acted as front persons for him and his drug trafficking organisation and held assets on their behalf.”
Flores does not run his own cartel, but rather “maintains strategic alliances with the leadership of Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel and the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación,” according to the treasury statement.
It is the single largest such designation of a drug trafficking organisation ever by its Office of Foreign Assets Control, the statement said.