Agency ordered to refund $20,000 booking fee following Black Sherif’s arrest

Daniel Vanderpuye, the Chief Executive Officer of Cruise People Limited, the company that caused Black Sherif’s arrest on Wednesday, July 19, 2023, has revealed how his action has caused Black Sherif’s booking agents to respond to their dormant mail trail.

He told Kwame Dadzie on Joy Prime that on Thursday, July 20, 2023, after months of going silent on their requests, he received a mail notification from the United Talent Agency.

Vanderpuye said, in the mail, the accountant of the agency was ordered to refund to Cruise People Limited, the $20,000 that was paid to Black Sherif as partial fulfilment of their financial commitment of $40,000 for his performance at the Afro Cruise Jam slated for August 19, 2023 in Greece.

“This morning when I woke up, an email trail that truncated some time on 19th of May had just resurrected and what do I see? A message to the account department to send the money to Ghana. So it took this for that to happen? So if Black Sherif wasn’t arrested they weren’t going to do this?” he said.

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Daniel noted that prior to this, he had served the agency a letter on the refusal of Black Sherif to record a video to confirm his availability for the Afro Cruise Jam. However, according to him, neither the agency nor the close team members of the artistes responded to the content of the letter.

The 21-year-old music star was picked up by the police when he got to the Kotoka International Airport on Wednesday, July 19, 2023, after performing at the biggest music festivals across the US and Europe this summer.

According to him, because Black Sherif and his team were unyielding to the agreement to produce a promotional video for their event, he decided to hand him over to the police and the immigration.

The Cruise People Limited boss mentioned that some time in June 2023, “we petitioned the director CID and asked that he be arrested. You how many calls came from the police that he ignored. You don’t wanna know that.”

“The police will just not wake up and arrest Black Sherif on a baseless or flimsy excuse from us. We submitted everything. So based on that the police secured an arrest warrant from the court and then informed the immigration because where were we going to find him. So it was either when he is leaving or he is coming. So the immigration stopped him, handed him over to the police,” he further stated.

Daniel said Black Sherif was later taken to the police station to assist in the investigation of the matter.

Asked if he could not have resorted to other means apart from the police, he said his lawyers had earlier written to the United Talent Agency, and that other stakeholders had also reached out to Black’s team but to no avail.

In the meantime, he is seeking to take a civil action against Black Sherif, to get a refund of his money and damages for the losses he made.

Source: Myjoyonline.com