Romantic proposal foiled after immigration thinks model girlfriend is sex worker
A tycoon's romantic planned proposal went horribly wrong when authorities thought his girlfriend was a sex worker and refused her entry to the country he was in, he claims.
Hal 'Nuby' Sears was shocked when his Moldovan girlfriend Darina Pinzaru, 25, and her sister Ina, 36, was denied entry to the Bahamas by an immigration official.
Hal, 64, wanted to purpose to Darina on their nine-day stay on the island but said "prejudice" by the female immigration official at Nassau’s Lynden Pindling International Airport put a real dampener on things.
Ina claimed that an immigration officer inferred that she and her sister were there as sex workers and she thinks that the "nefarious" official cruelly thought this because of her Eastern European background.
The official is reported to have said: "I know why you’re here."
'My girlfriend invited pals on a romantic trip for the two of us - I left early'Hal said to the New York Post: "It was so horrifying what they went through. It is beyond comprehension. They were pre-judged."
A furious Darina claimed she and her sister were "treated like criminals" and he told her businessman boyfriend that "they even threatened to put us in jail".
They had their phones seized and they were detained by authorities for a number of hours while their possessions were searched and their fingerprints taken.
Ina said she recalls being asked if she had the money to stay in the Bahamas and she assured authorities that she did.
Darina and Ina also hold Romanian citizenship and had the necessary documents they needed to enter the Bahamas, including their hotel reservations and confirmed plans.
Ina was initially granted entry to the island state, but it was Darina who encountered issues, they said.
The sisters and 10 other guests were due to join the tycoon on his massive yacht worth $5million (£4.15million) for the luxury stay. They were also due to visit Turks and Caicos.
As Darina encountered issues with her entry, Hal went to the airport with the hotel's head of security and the pair met the head immigration officer.
She was "dismissive," according to Hal.
"'They’re not in, they are out... I have information, they’re not coming in,'" the businessman claimed the officer said.
Woman enlists help of penguins to propose to girlfriend in sweet zoo momentAfter hours at the airport, the immigration officer then spoke to her supervisor.
"She talked apparently to this lady, the head of the immigration office," Ina said, saying that they were refused without explanation. "And she came outside, shot a glance at us and said, ‘They’re not going in.’ That’s all."
Ina claimed: "Up until this point, nobody explained a thing to us.
"While we were sitting outside, this lady, the head of the immigration came out and she said, ‘Yeah, I know your culture, I know why you’re here.
"We don’t want to you here, and you’ll never set foot on Bahamian land."
She continued: "My feeling is that she thought we were from Eastern Europe and we came there as sex workers... They said they were putting us on a flight back to London and that’s all."
The sisters have asked for an apology from the Bahamian authorities, furious at what they feel was a false assumption about their profession based on stereotypes about their home country.
Hal added: "The only justice we want is an apology from the Bahamian government."
"But we’re never going to get it, so we at least want others to know they’re at risk of this kind of nefarious prejudice — there’s no other way to describe this."
After the sorry affair, he has instead decided to propose to Ina next month in Amsterdam and hopes to put a "2.5-carat rock on her finger."