An arrest warrant has been issued for a luxury cruise ship bound for Miami

Authored by yahoo.com and submitted by Havvocck2

An arrest warrant has been issued for a Crystal Cruises ship that was supposed to arrive in Miami Saturday, but reportedly is a fugitive ship heading for the Bahamas Sunday.

The warrant issued in the Miami office of Fort Lauderdale federal court Thursday orders the U.S. Marshal to “arrest the Defendant vessel, her boats, tackle, apparel and furniture, engines and appurtenances and to detain the same in your custody pending further order of the Court.”

Court documents say Crystal Cruises’ couldn’t pay for its fuel.

Wednesday, Crystal Cruises parent company Genting Hong Kong announced it had drowned in rising debt waters and would be liquidating the company. Thursday, Crystal Cruises announced a suspension of ocean cruises until at least late April.

Between those announcements, Peninsula Petroleum Far East filed a civil suit in federal court saying Crystal Cruises and Star Cruises owed $2,104,169 and $1,295,469 for maritime fuel already delivered. And, that filing said, $1,200,908 was for fuel to power the Crystal Symphony.

This story was first reported by mulitple national news outlets, including Bloomberg News, and locally by WPLG-Channel 10 reporter Trent Kelly.

An entertainer on the ship, Elio Pace, Tweeted a thread that said passengers and crew were told Genting’s liquidation meant everyone would have to disembark upon arrival in Miami and find their own way home. Then, they were told the warrant had been issued and the ship would be diverted to Bimini, Bahamas.

“I wouldn’t believe it unless I was right here experiencing this surreal episode myself!” Pace Tweeted.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This is a developing story and will be updated as more is learned.

willienelsonmandela on January 23rd, 2022 at 19:04 UTC »

I have some insight I can provide that is not in the article. Crystal Cruises has been financially in a bad spot at least since the beginning of the pandemic and possibly longer than that. I had a client booked for the summer of 2020 and when his sailing was canceled because of covid it took a FULL YEAR to get his money refunded. Crystal is not cheap. It was somewhere around $20k and every time I called Crystal I was told basically "check back in a month." The agency I work for stopped allowing us to book clients on Crystal altogether in 2020 because refunds were promised and were not delivered for WAY too long.

citznfish on January 23rd, 2022 at 18:37 UTC »

I can't wait until the cops auction the ship off. I'll be there bidding $100

De_Vermis_Mysteriis on January 23rd, 2022 at 17:56 UTC »

They're seizing the ship and all thing related to it because the parent company stopped paying for Fuel. The company is shutting down and the ship is just out there wracking up more dept and cruising randomly