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(CNN Spanish) - The Government of Colombia announced Friday that it granted extradition to the United States of soccer player Jhon Viáfara, who must appear for narcotics trafficking offenses and concert to commit crimes.
Viáfara was arrested by Colombian authorities in March 2019 and the U.S. embassy in Colombia formalized the soccer player's extradition request in May.
The Prosecutor's Office said in a statement that Viáfara, a soccer player retired in 2015, "would be part of a transnational network that would have links to the Clan del Golfo criminal structure." The former soccer player was arrested in the city of Cali, Valle del Cauca, about 460 kilometers southwest of Bogotá.
MIRA: Colombian ex-soccer player Jhon Viáfara is accused of forming a drug trafficking network linked to the Sinaloa cartel
CNN en Español contacted José Viáfara, Jhon's father, to obtain a statement about his detention. The man says he communicated with his son the day before and that he denies being related to drug trafficking.
"What he informs me is that he will prove his innocence in court," Jhon Viáfara's father told CNN in Spanish in March. "He is going to show that what he has earned has earned him justly and that is what he says, that we are very calm."
"The judicial requirement states that, between 2008 and 2018, they would have partnered to move cocaine shipments through speedboats, semi-submersibles and other types of vessels leaving the Colombian Pacific to Central America," said the statement from the Prosecutor's Office.
According to the decree of the Government of Colombia, which authorizes the extradition, the defendant has 10 days to file an appeal to replace the decision.
Jhon Viáfara