Man will plead guilty to smuggling baseball star

Miami man plans to plead guilty next week to helping finance the venture

Yasiel Puig signed a $42m contract with the LA team before leaving Mexico (Getty)

The saga of how Los Angeles Dodgers star Yasiel Puig signed up with the team after being spirited out of his native Cuba on a speed boat deepened yesterday after it emerged that a Miami man plans to plead guilty next week to helping finance the venture in return for a cut of the player’s contract.

Gilberto Suarez is accused of paying $250,000 to a group with connections to a Mexican cartel to bring Mr Puig from a safe-house in Isla Mujeres, an island close to Cancun, where he and three others were being held after being snatched from a Cuban beach in April 2012.

Court papers show that Mr Suarez, 40, intends to plead guilty in a court hearing in Miami on 16 December on charges of conspiring to bring in and harbour aliens, crimes that could bring a prison sentence of up to 10 years.

That Mr Puig, 24, signed a seven-year, $42m contract with the LA team even before leaving Mexico has shone a new light on the shadowy relationship between Major League Baseball and Cuban defectors.