According to a criminal complaint made by a federal investigator, two sisters recently went on a weeklong cruise to the Bahamas, Jamaica, and Mexico aboard the MSC Seascape cruise ship from PortMiami Florida. Upon their return to Miami on July 23rd, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers conducted an enforcement operation and encountered the sisters in their shared cabin. The officers asked the sisters to bring their luggage for a secondary inspection, during which a narcotic detection dog alerted them to the presence of narcotics in one of the women's belongings.
Upon further search, officers allegedly found an unusual item sewn inside the lining of the sisters' backpacks, which turned out to be two packages of cocaine in each bag, totaling about 4.75 kilograms. A Homeland Security agent estimated the street value of the cocaine to be between $15,000 to $40,000.
The sisters denied any knowledge of the drugs in their luggage, with one of them mentioning that her backpack felt heavier than she remembered after leaving it unattended at a restaurant during their stop in Jamaica. She claimed that friends they met in Jamaica gave her a bag to hold her belongings, but she didn't notice anything suspicious about it.
CBP officers reviewed security footage from the cruise ship, showing the sisters leaving together and returning separately on July 19th, both carrying dark-colored backpacks. Phone records also revealed that one of the sisters sent a message to someone named "Kenny Jamaica" two days before the cruise, expressing her intention to stop whatever was going on.
The sisters told investigators that they were neither asked nor paid to smuggle drugs. As of now, federal prosecutors have accused the sisters of importing a controlled substance, but no charges have been filed yet.
For more MSC Seascape incidents and accidents see the ship's CruiseMinus page.