The former Chilean footballer was sentenced to 12 years in prison for drug trafficking

Joel Soto, former soccer player for the Chilean national team, with stages in clubs such as San Luis de Quillota, Santiago Wanderers, Universidad de Chile, among others, learned this Wednesday of his sentence for the crimes of drug trafficking, possession illegal weapons and illegal possession of ammunition. The retired athlete, present in the Oral Criminal Court of Valparaíso, sentenced to 12 years in prison.

More precisely, the “egg”, as it was known in the world of football, He was sentenced to 7 years in prison at his minimum for the crime of illicit drug trafficking and 5 years and one day in prison at his minimum for possession of a prohibited firearm.

Likewise, Soto was permanently disqualified from public office and You will have to pay a fine of 10 UTM, which is something like 624,500 pesos ($761.89).

You may be interested The government and the ANFP tackle the problem of football security in Chile

As, Jose Miguel Subiabre, prosecutor of Valparaíso, said that “it is a conviction in accordance with the facts that have been investigated, establishing that they had drugs and firearms, and that they were an organization designed to commit this type of crime”. “This satisfies the claims of the prosecution. We have completed a circle in the circulation of drugs by those who traffic in large quantities,” condemned the judicial authority.

In the same vein, the persecutor added that “the court recognized the special circumstance established by Law 20,000 (the one that defines and stipulates crimes and penalties related to illicit drug trafficking) and who makes the sentences high the way the court dictates todayand this fully satisfies the claims of the public prosecutor in the investigation phase, since it has been possible to establish faithfully that we are dealing with an organization.

“We have reported to the court with all the investigative material that we have reported, that these people are not people who are dedicated to delivering drugs to the final consumer, they are people who are dedicated to drug trafficking to deliver it to small micro-traffickerswho are the ones who later deliver the drug to the final recipient. So what we’ve done with this survey is kind of close a circle in terms of the circulation of the drug, not the end consumer, not the micro-trafficker, but rather those who traffic in large quantities to meet these types of objectives,” said Subiabre.

Similarly, the Chilean court also sentenced for the same crimes the former striker’s sister, Elizabeth Soto, who received a 5-year sentence, and Nazareno Reyes, Joel’s collaborator, who is to spend 10 years in prison.

In this sense, justice has established that the three involved were part of a gang focused on buying drugs in large quantitieswhich was then distributed in the Valparaíso region, near the capital Santiago.

It is important to mention that The former footballer and his henchmen were arrested in January last year in an operation carried out by the Investigative Police (PDI).where 7 kilos of narcotics were also seizedbetween cocaine, marijuana, paste base and ketamine, worth 70 million pesos (85,215.17 USD).

Soto, as a player, was active between 1998 and 2013 and in addition to defending the shirts of the Chilean team, he also crossed Mexico. However, where he is most remembered is at Santiago Wanderers and the University of Chile. He also participated in the Under-20 World Cup with the Chilean youth team and was called up for some games for the senior team, where he was never able to establish himself as a regular player in the calls.

Continue reading: