A 37-year-old financial analyst from Maryland was yanked off a Norwegian Cruise Line ship in Bermuda and charged with importing marijuana. Bermuda’s Royal Gazette says George Koumoulis, from Abingdon, Maryland, was nabbed with 7.66 grams of pot.
He had traveled to Bermuda last week on the Norwegian Dawn on a weeklong cruise from New York.
The paper quotes a prosecutor as saying other passengers had complained they smelled cannabis smoke coming from the cabin Koumoulis shared with his brother.
Ship crew went in and found Koumoulis alone. They also found two Ziploc bags containing an “unknown substance” and three packages of cigarette papers.
Appearing this week in Magistrates’ Court, Koumoulis said he had made a “very, very stupid mistake,” the newspaper reports.
Bermuda has strict drug laws, and in addition to being held on the island nation, and having to miss the rest of his cruise, Koumoulis was fined $1,500.
This is not the first such incident in recent years.
In October 2008, a Norwegian Dawn passenger from Maine was also charged $1,500, for carrying a similar amount of marijuana. And last year a passenger on the Norwegian Majesty out of Boston was fined $1,500 when police discovered he had a dozen joints.