updated 6:15 p.m. ET Dec. 18, 2008

BOGOTA, Colombia - The former owner of top Colombian soccer club Independiente Medellin turned himself in to police Thursday on a warrant for drug money laundering and other alleged crimes.

Rodrigo Tamayo was the 14th current or former executive of the club to be arrested or surrender since last week in a scandal involving a team that plays for the national league title Sunday. Authorities said two others remain at large.

Prosecutors say that some of the money Tamayo laundered belonged to Fabio Ochoa, a former Medellin cartel trafficker extradited in 2001 to the United States, where he was serving a 30-year prison sentence.

“I believe in divine justice,” Tamayo told reporters Thursday. “I know that in the end everything will be cleared up. I don’t believe I deserve this. I fought with good people for the good of Medellin.

“I know, in the end, that Medellin, a very dear institution, will emerge clean and we’ll all emerge clean.”

The first-division team was among several Colombian clubs alleged to have close ties to drug traffickers.

Tamayo ran the club from 1988-1992 and 1998-2007, when he sold it to a group including former national coach Francisco Maturana.

Prosecutors launched an investigation into Tamay after a former club auditor, Juan Bautista Avalos, denounced him publicly as having converted the team into a money-laundering mill.

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In a phone interview with The Associated Press, Avalos said that in the last three decades Independiente Medellin was used to launder some $150 million.

Documents viewed by the AP alleged that Tamayo used the sale of players, among other methods, to launder money.

One of the sales was of Luis Amaranto Perea to Boca Juniors of Argentina in 2003.

Perea now plays for Atletico Madrid and was a regular for Colombia.

Independiente Medellin lost 1-0 in Wednesday’s first round of the Colombian league final.

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