The Palm Beach Post reports today that the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office arrested a Royal Caribbean "vacation planer" who broke into cruise passenger’s homes with her husband while the families were away on Royal Caribbean cruise vacations.
Bethsaida Sandoval, described by the newspaper as a 38-year-old vacation planner for Royal Caribbean cruise lines, used her work database to find her victims’ addresses.
Police arrested Sandoval and her husband, John Lopez, on charges of armed burglary and burglary after the police determined that they were involved in breaking into 24 houses throughout South Florida.
The Palm Beach Post reports that Sandoval "gathered her victims’ addresses from other vacation planner’s files. She looked in the Royal Caribbean computer system for potential victims by entering the ship’s departure date, city name and phone number. She took that information and shared it with her husband and accomplices."
According to CBS 4’s article "Cruise Worker Sent Crooks to Cruiser’s Homes," an arrest affidavit filed by investigators said Sandoval was seen on surveillance entering Royal Caribbean offices at about 1 a.m. several times in the past month, using her employee ID to get access to a computer where she would log in.
Royal Caribbean has won our "Worst Cruise Line In The World" award several times. This one takes the cake.
Royal Caribbean PR department is trying to distance itself from this embarrassment by stating that the cruise line fired Sandoval. USA Today published the cruise line’s PR statement, claiming that Ms. Sandoval was a "former employee." Some news stations like WSVN TV-7 are already referring to her as an "ex-employee" who committed the burglaries, which is not true.
If Sandoval was an "ex-employee" this makes the situation worse. She had unfettered access to the complete passenger manifest at the cruise line’s headquarters late at night. She would have used her vendor badge to enter the parking lot and the cruise line’s offices! This situation demonstrates a very lax security situation at this cruise line.
As usual, Royal Caribbean did not respond to a request for a comment from Cruise Law News (CLN). This is one of the most evasive cruise lines in the world.
Congratulations to fine work by the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office.
Watch the video below:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=UGA0E2ZCSzI%26hl%3Den_US%26fs%3D1%26rel%3D0
For additional information, consider reading: CNN’s "Woman Accused Of Using Cruise Line Job For Burglaries."
Do you have information about this crime? Leave a comment below.
June 25, 2010 Update:
Royal Caribbean denies liability. Read: Cruise Crooks Update: Royal Caribbean Drops the Ball with the Diaz and Lopez Families
Credits:
Photographs Palm Beach Post News
Video WPTV Channel 5