Cruise Law News
Thrillist recently published an article about two passengers arrested on the Norwegian Joy with 112 plastic baggies of pot, totaling approximately 160 pounds, at the beginning of a cruise from Miami to Southampton.
According to the article, drug enforcement officers approached two passengers, Michael Quesenberry and Savannah Rose Minami once they board the NCL cruise ship at the Port of Miami on January 11, 2024. Ms. Minami claimed they that didn’t know each other and had just met at a bar on the cruise ship. But their story quickly began to fall apart after drug canines alerted on Mr. Quesenberry’s luggage where the officers found 56 vacuum-sealed baggies of weed. Quesenberry tried to claim that the pot was for his personal use. The DEA officers then questioned Ms. Minami again and reportedly found another 56 plastic bags of weed in her luggage in her cabin.
A special agent employed by the U.S. Homeland Security who arrested and charged the pair with drug trafficking wrote in an affidavit in support of the criminal complaint (via Court Watch): “Based on my training and experience, drug traffickers are increasingly turning to exportation of marijuana from the United States to England, due to the higher price of marijuana in England.”
Drug busts for cocaine on cruise ship are not particularly unusual. But I have never seen two people arrested for possessing the exact same amount of such a large quantity of weed.
