How Greece's Trikala FC Became Target for a Uruguayan Drug Kingpin

In September 2021, four Paraguayan players and coaches arrived at a second-division Greek club and started throwing cash around. Three months later, they vanished. This is the full story.

Trikala, a city of some 80,000 souls in central Greece, has a storied history. The Greek god of healing, Aesclepius, was born there. The city is mentioned in Homer’s Iliad as having thirty ships to fight against Troy. Great empires have converged on it, armies have clashed there, Romans, Macedonians and Ottomans.

In 2021, an empire of a different sort took an interest in Trikala - the drug trafficking empire of Uruguayan kingpin, Sebastián Marset.

In September of that year, an SUV turned up outside the Trikala Municipal Stadium. Out of it came four Paraguayan players and several technical staff, according to an investigation by the Washington Post.

Uruguayan drug trafficker Sebastián Marset. Source: Montage

The four players soon began training with the Trikala squad. One of the accompanying coaches, Manuel Cáceres, began spending lavishly, paying staff members in cash, distributing lavish sums to the players in the dressing rooms, buying clothes and equipment. 

The local staff were baffl…