Erling Haaland has appeared on billboards, trading cards and television screens this summer after scoring seven goals across four World Cup matches in July and becoming one of the most beloved figures on the planet.
Police in Ecuador's Carchi province, near the Colombian border, found his face somewhere new on Wednesday, stickered onto 370 green rectangular packages of cocaine seized from a truck's false bottom on the Pan-American Highway.
The driver and a woman carrying Colombian documents were arrested. The 469 kilograms of cocaine is valued at over €17 million on the European market.
Police released a video showing the packages spilling out of the truck's hidden compartment with Haaland's face clearly visible on each brick. He has not commented and has nothing to do with it.
The explanation is mundane. It is common practice for drug trafficking networks to label shipments with the names and faces of famous athletes and celebrities, a way of signaling which criminal organization produced the merchandise and which client it is destined for.
Messi's face has appeared on other seized cocaine shipments. Haaland's seven-goal World Cup turned him into the summer's most recognizable athlete. The cartel apparently kept up with football.