Cruise passengers smuggled 5 kg of cocaine into Miami, authorities say
Two sisters allegedly smuggled close to 5 kilograms of cocaine in their luggage last month while taking a week-long cruise from Miami through Mexico and the Caribbean, a report from a federal investigator says.
According to a criminal complaint filed by a U.S. Department of Homeland Security special agent, the sisters had arrived in the Port of Miami on July 23 after traveling on an MSC Seascape cruise that began a week earlier.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers boarded the MSC cruise to conduct an "enforcement operation" after the ship arrived from Cozumel, Mexico, with stops in Grand Cayman, Jamaica and the Bahamas. After finding the two sisters in their shared cabin, CBP officers asked the women to bring their belongings to a "secondary inspection." The complaint does not specify the reason for that inspection.
When the sisters exited the cabin, the criminal complaint says, a drug dog law enforcement had brought on board "alerted to the odor of narcotics" in one of the sister's suitcases. After the sisters claimed ownership of their belongings via Customs declarations forms at the secondary inspection area, CBP officers separated and searched the women and their luggage.
According to court documents, Schneeka Parker and Takeia Herder have been charged with conspiracy to import a controlled substance and importation of a controlled substance. A sealed indictment was entered into the docket Thursday.
Simon Patrick Dray, Parker's attorney listed in court documents, confirmed the charges to The Washington Post and said his client will be entering a plea of not guilty. An attorney listed for Herder did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Both women have an arraignment scheduled for Aug. 14.
The U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of Florida, where the case is ongoing, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A representative for CBP declined to comment on the investigation. NBC affiliate WFLA and Insider first reported on the allegations against the sisters.
Each sister was carrying a "dark-colored Samsonite backpack" inside their respective luggage, the complaint affidavit says. Inside each backpack CBP officers found an "anomaly sewed inside the lining." Within the lining of the two bags, they discovered a total of four "rectangular foam-covered packages" containing a "white powdery substance." Field testing revealed the powdery substance to be cocaine, the special agent's report says.
The cocaine weighed 4.75 kilograms in total. In the complaint, special agent Summer Louis estimated each kilogram to be worth between $15,000 and $40,000, depending on its purity and where it would be sold, which would put the value of the drugs somewhere between $71,250 and $190,000.
After reviewing security footage from the first day of the cruise, officers found that both sisters had checked in wearing dark-colored backpacks. They also wore the backpacks out and back onboard at the cruise's July 17 stop in the Bahamas and July 19 stop in Jamaica. While at the Jamaica stop, the sisters returned to the ship separately, both wearing the backpacks. Security footage did not show them carrying their backpacks again after July 19.
On July 20, when the cruise was back in the Bahamas, the sisters did not appear to disembark, per the security footage. And on July 21 in Mexico, they disembarked carrying smaller bags.
In their interviews with officers, both sisters denied knowledge of narcotics in their backpacks, and both said they were neither paid nor asked to smuggle narcotics.
In interviews with law enforcement, each of the sisters said Herder had invited Parker to join her on the cruise. Herder said she paid for the trip with help from a friend. The sisters then met with this friend and one other person upon arriving in Jamaica.
Herder told investigators she had left her backpack behind when she went to the bathroom and came back to find it "heavier than she originally remembered." Parker said she was offered a bag to carry her towels and belongings by one of the two people they met. "She did not notice anything suspicious about the bag because she did not see anything inside it," the complaint says. She then took the bag back onto the ship.
A search of Herder's phone by law enforcement found a series of WhatsApp text messages and voice and video calls with a Jamaican phone number. She had sent a message two days before the cruise to a contact listed as "Kenny Jamaica."
The message, in part, read: "I don't know what u doing but am not doing it no more so what ever u got going on let it stop playing with me and now you not going to pick up the phone." There was no response to the message.
MSC Cruises did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did the Port of Miami.
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