In a rundown petrol station on the outskirts of Montevideo, a teenager who had blown his salary on an Adidas David Beckham track jacket was filling up cars and dreaming of football stardom.
Ten years later, Sebastián Marset was running one of the largest drug-trafficking schemes in South America, flooding Western Europe with cocaine and evading thousands of international agents charged with finding him.
But the 33-year-old Uruguayan wasn’t on the run. He was hiding in plain sight, playing professional football for teams he had earned no right to be in – and wearing the famous number 23.
Calling himself the “King of the South”, a label stamped on cocaine bricks being shipped from Uruguayan ports to Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, baby-faced Marset built up a narco empire worthy of a global manhunt and the infamy that now follows him.
Marset used his dirty fortune to sponsor and purchase teams across South America and later Europe, often placing himself in centre midfield, despite his lack of fitness and natural ability.
He used the teams to launder millions of drug money, according to an investigation by The Washington Post based on thousands of police documents, wiretap transcripts and interviews with officials across three continents.
The so-called “Narco Millennial” was instrumental in opening up a new drug smuggling route, which led to a surge of cocaine into Europe’s ports and had Latin American, US and European officials chasing their tails.
Marset, who remains on the run, taunting investigators, dispatched his enemies with ruthlessness and confidence, gloating about it in messages and purveying the air of someone who knew he would not be caught.
And all the while, he was fulfilling a boyhood dream to play professional football.
Marset started early. Mediocre at football, too slow on his toes, weak in his passes and destined to go no further than semi-pro, the midfielder wrapped himself up in Montevideo’s criminal underworld.
In 2009, at18, he was arrested for possession of stolen goods. At 19, for possession of narcotics. By 22, he was caught smuggling marijuana and weapons into Uruguay in an operation that involved the uncle of Paraguay’s then president.
“This guy is going to be a big problem for us someday,” one of the arresting officers recalled saying.
After five years in one of Uruguay’s largest prisons, 27-year-old Marset emerged hardened, well-connected and committed to a fresh cause – building a new trafficking network to Europe, a route that had been bursting with untapped potential.
By 2020, US and Paraguayan authorities were concerned by a surge in cocaine arriving in Paraguay from Bolivia, bound for Europe via Uruguay’s ports. A new cartel’s stamp was on it, Primer Cartel Uruguayo.
Marset was referred to as “El Jefe Mayor” (“The Big Boss”) in wiretapped conversations, while his drug shipments were named “Maradona”, for one of his favourite players, and “Manchester” after the city’s two Premier League teams.
He disappeared from authorities’ radars for stretches of time, and unbeknown to them he was busy kicking balls instead of trafficking cocaine.
In early 2021, he joined the starting lineup of a second division Paraguayan league team called Deportivo Capiatá after it was alleged he bankrolled the club, bribed other players and gave the team’s coach a house, land, and two yachts not to be benched.
His performances did not quite match his hubris, with reports of missed penalties and fouls going unchallenged by referees who were paid off in advance. The team struggled as a result, until he abruptly left in March 2021 after learning narcotics officers were after him.
One of the world’s most prolific drug lords, he was finally caught in September 2021 in Dubai, where he owned property worth £14 million, for travelling on a false passport.
Both Paraguay and Uruguay failed to secure an arrest warrant, blunders that later cost senior government officials their jobs, and Marset managed to wangle his way out from custody and was in the wind again.
But business was still booming for the young kingpin as authorities chased him and his many false identities across continents. He forged further ties with international cartels and left a string of high-profile murders in his wake.
As investigators closed in, Marset’s ambitions seemed to get bigger.
He allegedly invested in two more mid-level teams, Rubio Ñu and River Plate de Paraguay, remodelling stadiums and attempting to sell players to Europe as part of complex money laundering fronts, according to authorities.
In February 2022, Paraguayan authorities launched “Operation A Ultranza,” which means “At All Costs”, the largest narcotics investigation in the country’s history. They arrested his associates, raided his homes and seized £80 million in assets.
A month later, Interpol issued an international arrest warrant.
Last summer, authorities tracked him down in Bolivia’s financial capital of Santa Cruz, where he had been living a lavishly public life with his wife and children, buying up property and mingling with celebrities under a false identity.
He also bought the small town team of Leones del Torno, moved it to the city and played badly wearing the number 23, David Beckham’s number at Real Madrid and Galaxy.
After an alleged tip-off, Marset had fled days before hundreds of heavily armed police swarmed his mansion.
He disappeared once again, his whereabouts becoming the centre of wild speculation among Latin American officials and his fans.
“I’m too intelligent for you,” Marset said in a recording sent to the press following the failed Bolivia operation.
He denied the allegations, boasted that he was helped by the head of Bolivia’s anti-narco unit, and claimed that he had left the country.
“If you want, keep hunting me, but I’m telling you that I’m far away,” he said.
In November, he gave a television interview from a house hidden deep in a jungle, believed to be somewhere in the remote rainforests of Paraguay.
Cocky and dressed in Louis Vuitton, he continued to maintain his innocence and mocked the international effort to find him.
Months of quiet went by until this week, when Marset’s wife, Gianina García Troche, was detained at Madrid airport after flying from Dubai. Marset has remained silent.
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