The duty of care of you will, really kicks in if your a professional and have accepted any form of renumeration for the voyage.
People like to think they can be slick and call it sharing costs, but that is pretty easy to penetrate, if you accept
money, even a share of the cost, be careful.
Now this being his Wife is of course way different.
If I had to guess, the authorities are suspicious and this charge is there just so that they can pursue him.
Of course that’s just my theory based on a news story, and we all know how accurate those are