The former boxer accused of coordinating shipments of drugs on the vessels of liner giant MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company has begun plea negotiations, according to court records.

The talks were acknowledged as part of a criminal case in a federal court in Brooklyn, New York, where Goran Gogic is facing allegations that he helped move 19.9 tonnes of cocaine on three vessels in the fleet of Switzerland-based MSC.

Former boxer accused of using MSC ships to move cocaine pleads not guilty
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TradeWinds reported in February that Gogic, a 43-year-old Serbian-speaking citizen of Montenegro, pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

Sanford Talkin, the attorney at New York law firm Talkin, Muccigrosso & Roberts who is representing him in the case, disclosed the negotiations on 8 March as part of a letter asking District judge Allyne Ross to push back a status hearing in the case.

“The parties are in the early stages of discovery disclosure and plea negotiations,” Talkin said in the filing.

Ross scheduled a new status hearing for 18 April.

Gogic faces three counts of violating the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act, as well as one charge of conspiracy to break the narcotics law.

If he is convicted, the charges against Gogic carry a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years imprisonment and up to a life sentence.

Federal agents arrested the former professional boxer on 30 October while he was boarding a flight from Miami to Zurich.

Prosecutors alleged that he coordinated with crew members on commercial ships used to move the drugs, with narco traffickers in Colombia who sourced the cocaine, with speedboat operators who delivered it to container ships off South America and with dockworkers at European ports who were lined up to receive the cocaine once it arrived at its destination.

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