Ecuadorian police seized 469 kilograms of cocaine stamped with the face of Norway soccer star Erling Haaland from a truck near the Colombian border on Wednesday, according to reports.
The stash weighed roughly 1,034 pounds and was packed into green rectangular blocks, many of them bearing stickers of the Manchester City and Norway striker. The driver of the vehicle was arrested at the scene, the Associated Press reported.
Anti-narcotics agents were running an operation on the Pan-American Highway after an anonymous tip came in early Tuesday, flagging a suspicious truck. A search turned up 370 packages concealed in a false bottom. Police released video showing the blocks spilling out of the hidden compartment, the Haaland stickers clearly visible.
Officers arrested a woman identified only as María R., who carried Colombian identity documents, in the operation at Guagua Negro, near the border city of Tulcán, about 153 miles north of Quito.
Police did not explain the striker’s image. Traffickers routinely brand their shipments with the names and faces of well-known athletes and other celebrities to signal which criminal network produced the drugs and which client the load belongs to, according to the AP.
Haaland is not the only player favored by smugglers. The image of Argentine national team captain Lionel Messi has appeared on another seized package.
The shipment carried an estimated value of nearly $842,000 on the domestic market, more than $11 million in the United States, and more than $19.6 million in Europe. Ecuador serves as a logistical hub where narcotics are stockpiled and moved along Central American routes to the United States, with some cargo also bound for Europe.
Haaland’s face has turned up on billboards, trading cards, and television screens since the World Cup. He scored seven goals across four matches in July for the tournament co-hosted by Mexico, the United States, and Canada. Haaland’s size and offbeat humor drove a wave of viral videos, earning him fan nicknames like “pretty princess” and “babygirl.”
The report drew a wave of jokes online after the seizure.
Ecuador has spent months on an anti-narcotics footing. Local gangs allied with Colombian and Mexican cartels run the routes and move the product, 80 percent of it from Colombia and the rest from Peru. Ecuadorian forces earlier seized 1.9 tons of drugs at sea with the U.S. Coast Guard. Weeks before that, they recovered a narco-submarine near the Colombian border. Police reported seizing 80 tons of drugs in the first half of this year, down from nearly 215 tons in 2025 and almost 295 tons in 2024.
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