ST. CROIX — A St. Thomas charter boat company says U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized one of its vessels last month after the agency’s own reporting app sent conflicting notices, approving and denying the boat’s return to the U.S. Virgin Islands following a day trip to the British Virgin Islands on July 8.
Stormy Pirates Boat Charters, a family-owned charter operation based at American Yacht Harbor in Red Hook, says its vessel Pirate’s Penny was seized by CBP on August 13.
“Four armed Customs and Border Patrol agents and a K-9 dog came to our office and seized our vessel,” Kristie Weiss, who owns Stormy Pirates along with her husband, Richard Weiss, said. “There was no previous warning.”
The Weisses said the CBP agents encountered their son Tyler, who was working in the office that day.
“They handed Tyler a handwritten piece of paper saying that the boat was seized,” Richard Weiss said.
Kristie Weiss said the CBP agents declined to provide her son or her attorney with any information regarding why the vessel was seized or what supervisors they could contact.
“For weeks, we had no idea where our boat was located,” Kristie Weiss said.
Since the handwritten seizure notice did not include a case number, the Weisses did not have any initial luck tracking down their boat.
“Every person we tried to contact couldn’t help us because we didn’t have a case number,” Kristie Weiss said, adding that she was told her case number would be mailed to her within 30 to 60 days.
Stormy Pirates says it learned of its boat’s location by chance.
Richard Weiss said a friend of his saw Pirate’s Penny at Puerto Del Rey Marina in Fajardo, Puerto Rico and took a picture of it.
It took 19 days for the Weisses to receive their case number in the mail. They then filed a petition with CBP the next day on September 2 for remission or mediation of forfeiture.
The July 8 trip and the ROAM app:
CBP has told the charter company the seizure stems from a July 8 charter trip to the British Virgin Islands during which, CBP alleges, the vessel’s passengers were not properly checked back into the United States.
The vessel’s captain that day used the CBP Reporting Offsite Arrival-Mobile application, known as ROAM, and received an approval notice at 4:39 p.m. The captain took a screenshot of the approval and continued on his way. He was not aware that, nine minutes earlier at 4:30 p.m., an email had been sent stating the trip had not been approved. He did not see that email until later that evening, after the passengers had disembarked.
“It’s an email that he opened up when he was sitting down to dinner,” Kristie Weiss said. “He already dropped his guests off. Once you have that approval through the ROAM app, we drop our guests off.”
Adam Marinelli, the family’s attorney who has been working with them to recover the seized boat, also discussed the conflicting messages.
“The captain did not see the email, but he saw the approval notice, thought everything was copacetic, and then went to disembark his passengers,” he said.
Marinelli said no one from CBP contacted the company about the trip until an investigator from the agency’s San Juan office called two weeks later asking about a passenger who was a Canadian national with a permanent resident green card. He said the company provided the requested information, including the approval screenshot, and did not hear back before the vessel was seized.
“They thought the matter was closed,” Marinelli said.
Charter industry says the app itself is the problem:
Other charter operators say ROAM app-related discrepancies are a widespread problem.
Kennon Jones, executive director of the Virgin Islands Professional Charter Association, surveyed local charter companies last month about their experiences with ROAM and found numerous reports of the same glitch described by Stormy Pirates.
Of 15 respondents surveyed — sent to all day charter operators in the territory — 11 reported receiving a denial followed later by an approval, and 14 of 15 reported receiving an approval followed by a denial, in some cases with multiple instances of each. The survey was conducted anonymously.
“The way the system works, as explained by CBP, is that that can’t happen, so something clearly is not connecting on the back end somewhere,” Jones said.
Jones said the ROAM app is designed to grant an approval followed by a confirmation email, but survey respondents indicated the follow-up email does not always arrive.
“We’ve certainly raised to customs that there’s glitches within the app, and the app needs to be fixed,” he said.
Beyond emailing CBP about the issue, Jones said he demonstrated the glitch in person to CBP officials at their Crown Mountain office.
“They certainly acknowledged that what they were seeing were errors that weren’t supposed to be there,” he said.
Jones said he believes CBP wants ROAM to work properly, not just for operators but for the agency itself.
“It’s a benefit to them,” he said. “It’s a benefit to the charter community for ROAM to be an option and to work.”
Stormy Pirates says it was the first commercial operator approved to use ROAM in the territory in April 2025 and has used it daily since without CBP ever providing formal training on its requirements.
CBP announced the implementation of the ROAM app for small pleasure boaters in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands in a news release issued June 29, 2018. Earlier this year on March 20, CBP’s San Juan Field Office issued a reminder about the reporting requirements. Failure to report could result in fines starting at $5,000 for the first offense and $10,000 for subsequent offenses, or vessel seizure.
On August 20, CBP issued a memorandum to charter boats, stating it had concluded the “informal compliance” phase and that “moving forward, all violations of ROAM protocols will be addressed strictly in accordance with applicable federal laws and regulations.” The memo said all ROAM app submissions must be initiated and completed only while the vessel is located within the designated areas off St. John of Caneel Bay, Henley Cay, or Lovango Cay. Vessels must not proceed beyond the designated reporting areas or the Cruz Bay Port of Entry until a formal decision has been transmitted by CBP via the app. All ROAM submissions will be required to complete a video chat — no exceptions.
Richard Weiss said the video chat requirement is new, noting it did not occur when Stormy Pirates’ captain utilized the ROAM app on July 8.
Most recently, on September 5, the San Juan Field Office issued another reminder about arrival reporting. It said CBP has seized three vessels and issued multiple penalties in Puerto Rico this fiscal year and has seized multiple vessels and issued multiple penalties in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Stormy Pirates’ legal recourse:
Marinelli said that in response to the company’s September 2 petition, CBP sent a letter proposing to mitigate a $5,000 penalty to $2,500, under a case number he said he had not previously been made aware of. He said the letter addressed a proposed monetary penalty but did not resolve the company’s request for release of the vessel itself.
Marinelli said a paralegal working with CBP’s legal counsel has repeatedly told him that the agency intended to release the vessel. To preserve his client’s legal rights, he submitted a demand for judicial relief within the mandated 35-day deadline. He said CBP has 90 days from the receipt of that demand to file a judicial action through the U.S. Attorney’s Office to divest his clients’ ownership of the vessel.
“I don’t know if they’re going to move forward with that, or if they will just simply acquiesce and release the boat,” he said.
If the U.S. Attorney’s Office does not file within that window, Marinelli said the vessel must be returned by law. If the action is filed within 90 days, he said the matter becomes a civil forfeiture action before the District Court of the Virgin Islands.
“At that point, we have a district judge that’ll make the decision on whether or not the seizure was valid,” Marinelli said, adding that the dysfunctionality of the ROAM app will be the focus of his argument if the matter reaches the litigation process.
Stormy Pirates says the seizure has cost it tens of thousands of dollars in attorney fees and lost revenue. Richard Weiss said the company is aware of four other vessels that have been seized and believes Pirate’s Penny was the first.
A different reason, same result: another vessel seized:
Not every recent seizure traces back to a ROAM discrepancy.
Rikky Baynes, owner of One Caribbean Charters, said CBP seized his vessel, Opulence, on August 27 after determining the boat had returned to St. Thomas from the British Virgin Islands on August 8 without the captain properly clearing in.
Baynes said the captain, who was not piloting an official charter that day but had taken personal friends to Tortola, arrived back in St. Thomas after the customs office had closed. He was expected to report in person the following day but did not do so.
“It was just a misunderstanding with the captain,” Baynes said. “He forgot to clear in because he came after hours.”
Baynes said he has filed a petition seeking the return of his vessel and has been told the case is now waiting on a decision. He estimated the seizure has already cost him $10,000 to $15,000 in slip rental, insurance, registration, and missed charters during the slow season, and said the loss could reach $20,000 to $50,000 a month once the charter season picks up.
Baynes argued the enforcement approach has been disproportionate, saying informal border crossings between St. Thomas and the BVI have long been common among locals returning home. He said he thinks a fine would have been a more appropriate penalty for a first-time offense than a vessel seizure in his case.
“A seizure ultimately is done when the boat was used in a severe illegal transaction,” he said. “This wasn’t used in a severe illegal transaction. This was something that many and many and many and many of locals have done.”
Although Baynes said his own seizure was unrelated to ROAM, he said his captains have separately run into confusion and technical problems with the app. He said one of his captains was told by CBP officers in St. John that ROAM could not be used for charter trips at all.
“The captains do complain about the ROAM app, and sometimes it doesn’t work, and when they go through, it takes long to get approval,” Baynes said. “So, they have to go in and check in.”
CBP’s response:
A CBP spokesperson declined to discuss the specifics of the Stormy Pirates case, citing agency policy on pending matters, but outlined the agency’s general reporting requirements and the consequences for failing to meet them.
“U.S. Customs and Border Protection does not comment on pending administrative or enforcement matters,” the spokesperson wrote in an email response to WTJX. “Generally, vessel operators arriving in the United States from a foreign place are required to report their arrival to CBP and comply with all applicable inspection and entry requirements. CBP ROAM is one tool that may be used by eligible travelers and vessel operators to facilitate reporting and processing. However, use of the application does not relieve operators of their responsibility to ensure they have complied with all CBP reporting, inspection, and clearance requirements. Failure to comply with federal arrival, reporting, inspection, or entry requirements may result in enforcement action, including monetary penalties, seizure, or other administrative or legal remedies, as appropriate. CBP evaluates each matter based on the facts and applicable law.”
