Goran Gogic ex boxer was carrying cocaine for a billion: arrested in Miami – Corriere.it

An ex boxer was arrested at Miami airport for trying to transport nearly 20 tons – 200 quintals, s, – from cocaine. Goran Gogic, Montenegrin, former heavyweightthrough containers intended to transportand from Colombia to Europe, drugs worth over a billion. The announcement was made by the US federal prosecutor on Monday.

Sunday evening Gogic, 43 years old – active in the rings in Germany between 2001 and 2012 with a score of 21 wins, 4 losses and 2 draws -, was stopped while he was embarking from Florida to Zurich. The arrest warrant was issued with three charges of violation of maritime drug legislation and one for conspiracy. Each of the charges requires a mandatory minimum of ten years of sentence.

After the preliminary hearing, he will be formally heard on Monday 7 November. The facts concern the kidnapping, which took place in Philadelphia in 2019, of 19,930 kg of cocaine from three commercial freighters – one of these, the Liberian-flagged MSC Gayane container ship,alone he was carrying 17,956

– embarking it on the high seas (motorboats approached the ships’ route at night and loaded the goods using nets and cranes, the crew then applied counterfeit seals to the altered containers). Eight Gayane crew members admitted their guilt and two Montenegrins, second officer Ivan Durasevic, now 32, and engineer Nenad Ilic, 42, were sentenced to 6 years and six months and 7 years in prison respectively in the summer of 2021. It is one of the largest drug seizures in US history.

Two other ships involved are the Msc Carlotta (New York, February 2019, 1,437 kg of cocaine) e the Msc Dsire (Philadelphia, March 2019, 537 kg). All three are headed by SinOceanic XIV Ltd, a Bermuda company.

The operation, complex in navigation, requires knowledge of each route, of the crew and also of the space available aboard each ship. Gogic would have been – for the prosecution – the logistics manager and coordination between smugglers and crews, but also between port operators in Europe.

In the preliminary hearing, Gogic defended himself by proclaiming himself innocent and assuring that he came from the United States only to attend the Wbo convention in Puerto Rico which took place from 24 to 28 October.