In a major crackdown against international drug trafficking, two Slovenian nationals, Gorazd Filimonovic and Gasper Urbanc, have been handed significant prison sentences for their plans to flood the United States with heroin. According to a press release by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, Filimonovic received a 10-year sentence, while Urbanc was sentenced to 13 years behind bars.
The duo had schemed to ship hundreds of kilograms of heroin from Europe to the U.S., branding themselves as connected to other traffickers and boasting of their trafficking prowess. Acting U.S. Attorney Matthew Podolsky, in a statement obtained by the U.S. Attorney's Office, remarked, “Gorazd Filimonovic, Gasper Urbanc, and their co-conspirators agreed to send a staggering amount of heroin to the United States. The defendants boasted of their connections to other drug traffickers in Europe, and claimed they had experience in trafficking thousands of kilograms of drugs. But today, all of that comes to an end as Filimonovic and Urbanc will serve lengthy prison sentences. This Office, through its longstanding partnership with the DEA’s Special Operations Division, Bilateral Investigations Unit, will continue to prosecute those who seek to harm our communities by flooding our streets with dangerous drugs.”
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had been investigating this case since at least 2019, with a Confidential Source initially tagging Urbanc as a major player in cocaine trafficking. Following a sequence of meetings and digital communications, the co-conspirators arranged to supply vast amounts of cocaine and heroin for sale in the U.S. They even met with the undercover sources several times across different countries to plan the logistics of these drug shipments.
Subsequent negotiations set the heroin's price at roughly €18,000 to €19,000 per kilogram, indicating a deal of colossal scale. In April 2021, the co-conspirators agreed to deliver up to 135 kilograms of heroin in Austria, due for subsequent distribution in New York City, for a sum of approximately €2.6 million (around $3.1 million at the time). As the discussion progressed and the undercover sources showed proof of payment, the groundwork for a major bust was laid, until the arrest of Filimonovic and Urbanc in Croatia on May 21, 2021, brought their plans to an abrupt halt, as detailed by the U.S. Attorney's Office.
The successful prosecution resulted from a collaborative international effort, with special acknowledgment to the DEA's Special Operations Division, as well as law enforcement agencies from Slovenia, Austria, and Croatia. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sam Adelsberg, Matthew J.C. Hellman, Nichholas S. Bradley, and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Isaacson helmed the legal proceedings.
