Mediterranean Shipping Co has been a noted victim in
recent months of cocaine being stashed on board during journeys starting in Colombia
and ending in Europe.
An indictment was unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn at
the weekend charging Goran Gogic, 43, with one count of conspiracy to violate
the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act and three counts of violating the
Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act. Montenegro national Gogic is a former
heavyweight boxer. He was arrested on Sunday October 30th as he
attempted to board an international flight from Miami International Airport.
There have been a string of cocaine shipments from South
America, including three cases where US authorities found cocaine hidden on
container ships operated by MSC. This included an 18-ton haul found on the MSC
Gayane (IMO 9770763) at the port of Philadelphia in 2019.
Ivan Arvelo, special agent-in-charge at Homeland Security
Investigations, said that “Gogic, as alleged, is a major drug trafficker who,
along with his criminal associates, is responsible for overseeing long-range
narcotics transportation on containerships as well as the wholesale
distribution of cocaine throughout Europe.”
MSC saw its Customs Trade Partnership (C-TPAT)
certification suspended in the US following the series of drugs being found on
its ships. The crew on the vessels involved a number of seafarers from
Montenegro.
The case against Gogic states that his team loaded drugs
onto MSC ships at night near the coast and ports, working with crewmembers who
would hoist loads of cocaine from speedboats that approached the ships at
multiple points along their route. To physically load the cocaine aboard, they
used the ship’s cranes as well as nets. Once the cocaine was onboard, the
crewmembers would hide it within specific shipping containers that they knew
had sufficient room to conceal the large quantities of cocaine and for which
they had duplicate counterfeit seals. They selected the specific containers to
be used to conceal the cocaine based, in part, on the containers’ location and
orientation, and route and destination onboard the vessel.
2018-built, Liberia-flagged, 102,492 gt MSC Gayane is
owned by Meridian 7 Ltd care of MSC Mediterranean Shipping Co SA of Geneva,
Switzerland. ISM manager is MSC Shipmanagement Ltd of Limassol, Cyprus. It is
entered with UK Club on behalf of Conglomerate Maritime Ltd.
