This Soccer Team Is on a U.S. Government Blacklist for Its Ties to Narco-Trafficking

At 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, the United States Department of the Treasury officially added Colombian soccer club Envigado FC, the Medellin-area club known for its strong youth system that produced superstar James Rodriguez and others, to the list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons for the club's alleged connections to the violent narco-trafficking cartel, La Oficina de Envigado.

Known informally as the "Clinton List," the SDN list is managed by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) to prohibit Americans from engaging in any sort of business relationship with listed persons and entities deemed to be operating illegal enterprises--or simply operating in or on behalf of countries which the United States doesn't particularly like, such as North Korea. Included are alleged financiers of global terrorist networks, Mexican drug cartels, war criminals in the Balkans (a search of the list for "Bosnia" yields nearly 10,000 results), and the entirety of ISIS, all of whom are now joined by a small soccer club based in a quaint suburb of Medellin that recently finished the 2014 Liga Postobon season in 14th place.

Next to the entry for "Envigado Futbol Club, S.A." is the acronym "SDNTK," which stands for "Specially Designated Narcotics Trafficking Kingpin."

According to a report released by OFAC in coordination with the DEA, Envigado FC and some of its shareholders are among several companies involved in money laundering and other operations for La Oficina, all of whom were listed together on Wednesday.

"The diversity of those designated today - targeting a variety of companies and influential cartel members, including the majority owners of a professional soccer team - will strike at the financial core of this violent criminal network and impede its efforts to operate in the legitimate financial system," said OFAC director Adam Szubin, in a statement provided by the Department of the Treasury.

Founded in the early 1980s as a wing of the Medellin Cartel helmed by Pablo Escobar, who himself grew up in Envigado, La Oficina has maintained some level of power in the city ever since Escobar's 1993 death and was also named a "Specially Designated Narcotics Trafficking Kingpin" by OFAC on June 26 of this year. It has also long been connected to Envigado FC, as Gustavo Upegui, the longtime chief shareholder of the club, was a childhood friend of Escobar and had long been suspected of involvement in La Oficina until he was murdered in 2006 by hired assassins.

Upegui's son, Juan Pablo Upegui Gallego, is a current primary shareholder of the club and was specifically named in the report as "a key associate within La Oficina and has used his position as the team's owner to put its finances at the service of La Oficina for many years." Several of the other companies listed are said to have investment from Upegui Gallego or others within Envigado FC.

With historic Colombian powerhouse America de Cali having been cleared from the SDN list last year, there are currently two other soccer-related entities on the list. One is Florida Soccer Club, which was formerly a small club in Medellin, and the other is Profutcol, a player representation agency based in Bogota.

As the recent success of the Colombian national soccer team brings well-earned attention to the country's ongoing renaissance, the announcement comes as an unwelcome reminder of the connection between narco-trafficking and soccer in Colombia.