Colombian authorities arrest Juan Santiago Gallón Henao, a suspected drug trafficker linked to the 1994 murder of football player Andrés Escobar, who is being sought for extradition by a New York court.

Members of the Technical Investigation Body (CTI) of the Prosecutor's Office arrested Gallón in the city of Cúcuta, on the border with Venezuela, as part of a case involving drug trafficking to Europe, the judicial entity reported.

The captured individual was already deprived of his freedom in 1995 after being implicated in the murder of Andrés Escobar, a central defender who played for Atlético Nacional and was part of the Colombian national team that played in the 1994 World Cup in the United States.

"The gentleman of football," as Escobar was known, was murdered in Medellín on July 2, 1994, ten days after the match with the United States in which Colombia was eliminated from the World Cup.

In that game, Escobar scored an own goal and Colombia lost 2-1, which, according to some versions, motivated his assassination days later.

Upon returning to Colombia, 27-year-old Escobar was in the parking lot of a restaurant on the outskirts of his native Medellín when he was verbally assaulted by Juan Santiago Gallón Henao and his brother Pedro.

Immediately after, the Gallón brothers' driver, Humberto Muñoz Castro, shot the football player several times, and Escobar died shortly after in the hospital.

Investigators at the time considered the hypothesis that the crime was related to the loss of money in bets caused by the result of the match against the United States.

However, another theory suggests that the event was related to the climate of violence that Colombia experienced in the 1990s.

According to the Prosecutor's Office, Gallón Henao, who lived in Medellín, had been a fugitive from justice for four months when he learned that a New York court had requested his extradition for the crime of drug trafficking, and he will be initially transferred to Bogotá.

Gallón Henao was prosecuted in 2009 for financially supporting a group of 300 paramilitaries in the department of Antioquia (northwest), for which he was sentenced to three years and three months in prison.