A Miami-based real estate developer said his proposal plan was derailed when a bigoted immigration officer denied his girlfriend and sister entry to the Bahamas on suspicion of being sex workers.
Hal ‘Nuby’ Sears, 64, had been planning to ask his girlfriend to marry him during a nine-day trip to the Bahamas, during which they planned to stay on a 70-foot yacht.
Darina Pînzaru, 25, and her sister Ina, 36, from Moldova, were denied entry in an act of ‘prejudice’ and sent back to London, Sears told the New York Post.
Sears, who met Pînzaru last summer in Romania, said officers turned her and her sister away after they arrived in the Bahamas in February, telling them, “I know why you’re here.”
‘It was so horrible what they went through. It is beyond comprehension. They were prejudged,” he told The Post.
Darina Pînzaru (pictured), 25, and her sister Ina, 36, were denied entry to the Bahamas because an immigration official incorrectly accused them of being sex workers.
Hal ‘Nuby’ Sears, 64, was waiting for Pînzaru and his sister at the airport when he says an officer told him: ‘They’re not in, they’re out.’ Sears said that he had been planning to propose to her during the trip.
“The only justice we want is an apology from the Bahamian government,” Sears said. “But we’ll never make it, so we at least want others to know they’re at risk of this kind of vile bias—there’s no other way to describe this.”
The original plan was for the two Pînzaruses and ten other guests to join Sears on their $5 million Pershing 7X yacht on a voyage that would take them around the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Sears told The Post that he had been waiting for the two to arrive, but as Ina was about to get her passport stamped, Darina began to run into trouble.
Ina said they were both sent to an immigration office where they were questioned about their plans and asked if they had money and a place to stay.
“They treated us like criminals,” Darina told The Post. “They even threatened to put us in jail.”
After she texted Sears to let him know what was happening, he called for help from the Four Seasons Ocean Club resort where he was staying and the hotel’s head of security arrived, according to the Post.
Both spoke to the head of immigration, who they say showed no sign of budging.
“They’re not in, they’re out,” Sears recalled the official saying. ‘I have information, they are not entering.’
The two sisters had arrived in the Bahamas to spend time on Amici, a $5 million 70-foot Pershing 7X yacht (pictured)
Darina (pictured) said that she and her sister were treated like animals and probably tried for being Moldovans.
Ina described how the sisters’ phones, laptops and handbags were taken and even fingerprinted.
Do you have the financial means to stay in the Bahamas? Ina said that she was asked. “I told him: ‘Yes, of course I do, we have cash, cards, no problem.’
“Apparently he spoke to this lady, the head of the immigration office,” Ina told The Post. And she came out, gave us a look and said, “They’re not coming in.” That’s all.’
“Up to this point, no one explained anything to us,” Ina said. “While we were sitting outside, this lady, the head of immigration, came out and said, ‘Yes, I know your culture, I know why you’re here,'” Ina said. “We don’t want you here, and you will never set foot on the land of the Bahamas.”
The two were then put on another plane and sent back to London.
Sears says she later filed a complaint with the Bahamian embassy in London on behalf of the two sisters, but received no response.