by Sarah Kuta
Last updated: 1:15 PM ET, Tue August 4, 2026
Six cruise passengers were reportedly arrested in Italy for using their ship’s public address system to make a fake emergency announcement.
The group was traveling aboard MSC Cruises’ MSC Divina as it sailed from Marmaris, Turkey, to Naples, Italy, according to Italian news reports. At about 6:30 a.m. local time on July 30, they somehow hacked into the onboard communications system and announced that the captain had lost control of the ship.
Fortunately, the unauthorized announcements only reached the common areas of two decks.
The captain made a subsequent announcement apologizing for the incident.
Several other passengers reported the incident to the Operations Center of the General Command of the Port Authority of Rome, a division of the Italian Coast Guard. The vessel’s captain also filed a formal complaint.
When the ship docked in Naples, police boarded the vessel and began to investigate. They linked the announcement to the six passengers, who were disembarked and charged.
A spokesperson for the cruise line confirmed the incident, writing in a statement shared with People that “an unauthorized announcement was broadcast on the ship’s PA system.” However, the statement continued,“at no point were any of the ship’s systems hacked or compromised, including any computer systems.”
“The safe operation of the ship was not impacted in any way,” the statement continued. The incident was “immediately resolved and changes put in place to ensure it won’t happen again.”
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