President Gustavo Petro of Colombia announced on Friday that a drug trafficker, Santiago Gallon Henao, had been killed in Mexico. Gallon was linked to Andrés Escobar, the Colombian national team’s central defender who died in 1994 after scoring an own goal during the 1994 World Cup.
Escobar, a soccer star on the Colombia national team at the time, was murdered days after the match by his brothers Santiago and Carlos Gallon Henao. The brothers allegedly confronted Escobar at a nightclub shortly after he scored the own goal, leading to Escobar’s death in the parking lot of the club.
Gallon’s brother Humberto Munoz Castro admitted to shooting Escobar several times during this encounter. Munoz was convicted and served 11 years of his 43-year sentence before being released. He had previously confessed that he would yell “goal!” each time he fired a gun, according to reports from the Bogota Post.
Gallon and his brother were investigated for obstruction of justice and spent over a year in prison without trial. They have been included on a U.S. Treasury Department blacklist due to their suspected involvement with La Oficina de Envigado, a successor organization to Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel. In 2015, they were listed alongside other individuals for their alleged role in drug trafficking.
The murder of Andrés Escobar shocked the Colombian and international soccer communities. Petro called the incident “a black mark on Colombia’s image internationally,” emphasizing that it “destroyed” the country’s reputation.
Gallon was killed on Thursday in Huixquilucan, a municipality in Mexico state, according to an AFP source from Toluca prosecutor’s office.