The last of three Staten Island men charged with attempting to bribe a juror in the federal drug trial of former heavyweight boxer Goran Gogic pleaded guilty on Tuesday.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Mustafa Fteja, Vladimir Krasniqi, and Afrim Kupa in November after they approached a juror and offered to pay $100,000 to return a not guilty verdict against Gogic, who is on trial for allegedly trafficking some $1 billion worth of cocaine from Colombia to Europe through the United States.
Kupa pleaded guilty before United States Magistrate Judge Peggy Kuo on May 5 to obstruction of justice. The other two Staten Island men had previously pleaded guilty in February and March. Kupa, Krasniqi and Fteja each face up to 20 years’ imprisonment in sentencing.
“Any attempt to interfere with the integrity of our justice system will be met with swift and serious consequences,” said U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Joseph Nocella. “These defendants admitted they obstructed a federal criminal trial in Brooklyn by attempting to bribe a juror, which strikes at the very heart of the rule of law.”
The day the trial against Gogic was set to begin, federal prosecutors announced that one of the jurors had been approached with a bribe. The trial was then postponed.
In the federal complaint, FBI Special Agent Joseph Costello described his investigation into the plot starting Nov. 13, 2025, when Fteja called a juror, identified as “John Doe,” and set up a meeting in Staten Island where he offered to pay $100,000 in cash for a “not guilty” verdict in the trial.
The FBI tapped Fteja’s phone and recorded a conversation with Krasniqi about how the trio planned to get the juror the money. The next day the FBI staked out Fteja, Krasniqi and Kupa as they met at Krasniqi’s Staten Island home.
Kupa has a criminal record that includes jail time for robbery and drug trafficking.
He was sentenced along with Gambino crime family affiliates in 2011 in a marijuana and cocaine trafficking ring. In 2010, he was convicted of burglary in the Eastern District of New York, and sentenced to 46 months in prison for a prior Brooklyn bank robbery where he used a blowtorch to cut open a Brooklyn Bank’s roof and make off with hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Gogic is charged with conspiracy to distribute massive hauls of cocaine through commercial cargo ships between May 2018 and July 2019. The feds allege the former boxer coordinated with the Colombian sources, ship crewmembers and port workers to smuggle the drugs in the country. Law enforcement seized three of these shipments, which totaled 20,000 kilograms of cocaine. If convicted, Gogic faces up to life in prison.