Three men have been arrested for allegedly trying to pay up to $100,000 in cash to a juror at the Brooklyn drug trial of a former heavyweight boxer, leading a judge to abruptly dismiss the jury as it was about to hear opening statements. The New York City trial for former heavyweight Goran Gogi of Montenegro, who is charged with violating federal maritime drug law by smuggling cocaine on container ships, was scheduled to start Monday. Instead, it was adjourned and the jury was dismissed, according to court documents. The judge presiding over the trial in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, Joan M. Azrack, scheduled a status hearing for Dec. 17, according to a court document filed Monday. On Sunday, a complaint including an FBI agent's claims against the trio in the alleged bribe scheme was filed in the same court. It alleges that Mustafa Fteja, Valmir Krasniqi, and Afrim Kupa gathered that day at Krasniqi's home in Staten Island, where they were recorded discussing an alleged plot to pay a juror "known" to Fteja to vote not guilty in exchange for $100,000 cash. The complaint quotes Fteja asking "How they gonna pay" the juror, who is not named in the filing. Kupa responded by saying only, "Cash," according to the complaint. He later says, "One, one hundred thousand," the document states. The FBI agent, who said in the complaint that he is an expert in Balkan and Italian organized crime, said the trio spoke both in Albanian and English and that an FBI linguist translated some of the conversation. According to The Associated Press, Fteja was released on a $150,000 bond after a court hearing; Krasniqi and Kupa were detained. All three are listed as living in Staten Island. A woman answering a phone number listed for Fteja said that he was not available and that she could not leave a message. A message left on a line listed for Krasniqi was not immediately returned late Monday. A phone number listed for Kupa was not active. In a 2020 ruling that kept Kupa behind bars for a 2013 drug conviction despite his request for health-related release, U.S. District Judge Edward R. Korman said he had an extensive criminal record and was associated with the "Gambino crime family." Kupa "supplied multi-kilogram amounts of cocaine and marijuana" to a member of the organization, Korman said.Gogi, who is charged with three counts of violating the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act, pleaded not guilty. Federal prosecutors allege he masterminded the logistics of stashing large amounts of Colombian cocaine on container ships bound for wholesale distributors in Europe. The office of the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York alleged in a statement in 2022 that Gogi was behind shipments of 20 tons of cocaine that he tried to move through U.S. ports in 2018 and 2019 before they were intercepted. He was 43 at the time, the office said. Prosecutors allege that Gogi conspired with others to load commercial container ships off Latin American coastlines with cocaine via offshore speed boats and the use of hoists and that crew members on the operations would put the drugs in containers with extra room and then use "duplicate counterfeit seals" to throw off inspectors. On June 19, 2019, a takedown of about 17,956 kilos of cocaine from a Liberia-flagged container ship at the Port of Philadelphia was said to be the largest cocaine seizure in the 230-year history of U.S. Customs, according to Customs and Border Protection said in a statement at the time. Authorities also seized cocaine alleged to be under Gogi's direction in Panama, Peru, and the Netherlands, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York said in 2022.
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