Ronaldinho

Rio de Janeiro: Brazil football stars Ronaldinho and Anderson were caught on a police wiretap talking about attending a party with a fugitive drug dealer who was found hiding in Anderson’s apartment, police said.

Suspected trafficker Richard Alex Martins was captured in Anderson’s apartment in Porto Alegre, also Ronaldinho’s hometown in southern Brazil, amid a mass police raid late Monday.

Officials emphasised that neither Ronaldinho, who plays for AC Milan, or Anderson, with Manchester United, are suspected of having any links to the suspect’s criminal activities and were not under any suspicion of having committed a crime.

Neither player was in Brazil at the time of the arrests, authorities added.

A friend of Anderson’s was looking after his apartment and probably allowed Martins to stay there after he escaped from prison in June, said public minister Ricardo Herbstrith.

Authorities said they tapped telephones and captured a conversation between Ronaldinho and Anderson in which the two talked about attending a samba party with Martins.

No details were provided about when the conversation took place or where they planned to party with Martins — who police allege is one of the bigger drug dealers in Porto Alegre. At no point in the conversation was drugs mentioned.

“They were only friends with the trafficker — we’re not even sure if they knew he was a criminal,” a spokesman for the public ministry in Rio Grande do Sul state said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak about the case.

It wasn’t clear if drugs were being sold out of Anderson’s apartment, authorities said.

The yearlong investigation to break up a drug trafficking ring in Porto Alegre resulted in the capture of 28 suspects late Monday and early Tuesday, police said.

Anderson’s agent Paulo Tonietto said the player was not in Brazil and would comment on the case at an undisclosed time in the future.

It was not immediately possible to locate Ronaldinho or his agent.