By Victor Kanayo
Police have for the third time arrested former Colombian player Diego Leon Osorio for trafficking.
Osorio played for Colombia’s national team in the 1990s.
Another Osorio Drug Entanglement
According to Columbian Police, the former left-back was attempting to board a flight to Madrid, Spain, on April 8, from an airport near Medellin “with 1,849 grams of cocaine hydrochloride.”
Eyewitness said, airport authorities discovered the drugs in four pairs of sneakers before making the arrest.
But police did not announce the arrest when a video was leaked to the press showing Osorio, who won league titles with Colombian side Atletico Nacional, in handcuffs next to a uniformed officer.
The 52-year-old was previously arrested in 2002 while transporting cocaine in Miami but was released on bail.
Columbia, Footballers And Age-long Drug Racketeering
Football and drugs have been inextricably linked in Colombia, the world’s leading producer of the white powder, for the past four decades, with several players arrested for drug trafficking.
Anthony de Avila, the all-time leading scorer for Colombian club America de Cali, was arrested in Naples, Italy, in September 2021 for ties to the mafia.
Jhon Viafara, a midfielder on the Once Caldas team that won the Copa Libertadores in 2004, was extradited to the United States for his role in a drug shipment to that country.
