The New Orleans Advocate reports that a branch of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has busted a cocaine smuggling operation where crew members smuggled cocaine from Honduras to New Orleans aboard Norwegian Cruise Line’s (NCL) Norwegian Dawn cruise ship.
The drug bust took place last Sunday. On line AIS tracking sites show that the Norwegian Dawn is now cruising to countries in the Caribbean / Central America, having recently left the Honduran cruise port of Roatan which is in the Bay Islands.
Earlier this year, NCL crew members have been busted before trying to smuggle drugs into the U.S. from Roatan. Five NCL crew members on the Norwegian Sun were arrested in Tampa when the cruise ship returned from Roatan where the crew members picked up the drugs. One crew member was recently convicted and the other 4 pled guilty.
The Norwegian Dawn was last mentioned in our article last year about a NCL Nicaraguan galley worker, tried to board the Dawn with a package of cocaine hidden under his clothes. The ship’s security discovered the drugs and reported the incident to the national police, who arrested the crew member.
The NCL cruise ship drug smuggling stories last year then reportedly involved widespread arrests of NCL crew members on the Epic as well as some on the Sun. Several NCL crew members have told me that as many as 20 NCL crew members from Nicaragua were arrested with cocaine in April last year.
You can read about the latest NCL drug bust at the New Orlean Advocate in an article by Jim Mustian. The article mention five arrests: Asbert Lowmans, Jean Louis, Esias Felicien, Kevin John, and Alfred Dennison. The first four men appear to crew members. The last, Mr. Dennison identified as being from Jamaica, is alleged to have met with the crew member to buy the drugs.
Photo Credit: Norwegian Dawn by Fletcher6 licensed under CC BY 4.0 via Commons / Wikipedia.