By Elisinio Castillo

The former world boxing champion Celestino "Pelenchin" Caballero was sentenced to five years in prison for drug related charges.

The sentence was carried out in the First Criminal Court, in which Caballero reiterated his guilt and manifested his regret for what happened.

On March 10, 2016, the former boxer was arrested in the North Corridor, in the direction of the province of Colón, after packages of cocaine were found in his vehicle. Officers seized a total of 10.87 kilos of drugs.

According to his defense, which was handled by lawyer Sheyla Miller, the boxer was in a vulnerable situation as he faced economic problems and did not have a fixed job, however he asked that the court consider that he wasn't aware of anything related to criminal laws and gave his full cooperation to authorities.

But for judge Agueda Renteria, this argument was "incongruous".

Caballero been in preventive detention since 2016.

Pelenchín, who in 2006 won the world title of the World Boxing Association (WBA) in the super bantam division, was caught as part of a police operation on the highway in question.

According to the Public Ministry, he had five kilograms of drugs hidden in the trunk of his vehicle and five kilograms in a plastic bag.

Caballero, retired in 2014 and since then dedicated himself to singing reggae, and admitted the facts days later and apologized to his followers.

His career was going very well and he was often featured on HBO, until suffering an upset decision loss at the hands of Jason Litzau in November 2010.

Caballero (37-6, 24 KOs) had also captured a WBA world title at the featherweight limit after beating Jonathan Barros in October 2011.

He would go on to lose to Robinson Castellanos by split decision in April 2013, and two fights later he was beaten up pretty bad in a one-sided decision loss to super featherweight Adrian Estrella in October 2015 - which became the last fight of Caballero's career.