The Florida Director of Field Operations (DFO Florida) for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in Port Canaveral has continued a series of deportations involving cruise ship crew members, this time following a targeted Child Sexually Exploitative Material (CSEM) “enforcement operation.” CSEM is typically called Child Sexual Abuse Material (“CSAM”). DFO Florida recently announced that an
A federal jury found Malaysian national, Lay Ong, 67, guilty for sexually abusing a minor during a Royal Caribbean cruise. The incident took place earlier this year on the Icon of the Seas during the ship’s March 29 through April 5 voyage from Miami.
Ong was convicted on October 23 and the press release of
A man broke into the cabin of a female crew member in the middle of the night and sexually assaulted her on October 9th. The sexual assault occurred aboard Costa Cruises’ Costa Favolosa while the ship was sailing to Genoa, Italy.
According to local Italian news, the perpetrator used a magnetic key card to
Disney Cruise Line built its reputation as the safest, most family friendly vacation at sea. The data tells a different story.
According to U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), sexual assaults and rapes on Disney Cruises have exploded over the past three years.
From 2019-2022, Disney had just one-to-three incidents reported each year. Those numbers surged
A Carnival Cruise Line passenger from Kingsport, Tennessee was arrested in Miami, Florida after federal authorities found child pornography on his phone according to court documents. Jason Alan Miller, 48, was arrested shortly after disembarking the Carnival Horizon and was charged with possession and transportation of child pornography.
At the port in Miami, Miller was
A Carnival crew member, Reza Heta Pratama, was sentenced in New Orleans by a federal district court judge for possession of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM). Pratama, a citizen of Indonesia, was arrested in July 2024 when the Carnival Valor docked in New Orleans following a cruise to Mexico last summer.
Carnival instructed Pratama to
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recently detained and deported crew members from a cruise ship operated by Victory Cruise Lines. I was first contacted three days ago by a cruise passenger who communicated with four crew members who informed him that CBP officers boarded the Victory I cruise ship while it was docked at the
A crew member employed on the Carnival Valor pleaded guilty to possession of Child Sexual Abuse Material (“CSAM”) in a federal district court last week. Reza Heta Pratama, a citizen of Indonesia, was arrested
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recently issued a press release described as a “cruise ship crack down” involving “child exploitation offenders during joint operation.”
The press release stated that the CBP’s Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport human trafficking unit collaborated with the Port of Galveston in Texas and Port Canaveral in Florida in an operation that
Yesterday U.S. District Judge Julie R. Rubin sentenced Jalen Thomas Kelley, 22, of Abingdon, Maryland, to 20 years in federal prison, followed by five years of supervised release, for raping a minor who was sailing with her family on a Carnival cruise ship out of Baltimore, Maryland. This news comes from a press release by
A cruise passenger who was installed a secret WIFI camera on a cruise ship sailing from Miami to the Caribbean and recorded more than 150 individuals, including many children, was released from prison last month after serving less than one year in a low security institution in Florida and paying only a $25 fine.
Jeremy
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) went to social media last Friday to make a point with a former crew member.
It announced that a cruise ship employee from northern Florida, Theodore “Banks” Pappas, Jr., previously employed by Norwegian Cruise Line on the Norwegian Bliss as the “Head of Broadcast” (broadcast technician)
On April 8, 2025, we reported on the arrest of a Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) crew member on the Norwegian Bliss who was apprehended at the port of Los Angeles at 8:30 a.m. on April 4th for possession and transmission of child sexual abuse materials (CSAM).
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) stated
A Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) ship employee has been arrested at the port of Los Angeles, California and charges with 13 counts of possession of child sexual abuse material, according to a release from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE).
Theodore Burbank Pappas, Jr., age 47, was arrested by the Los Angeles Port Police
Two adult cruise passengers were arrested last Friday at PortMiami on charges of sexually victimizing a 14 year-old boy on the Royal Caribbean Independence of the Seas, according to numerous local news stations.
According to arrest reports from the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office , cruise passengers Ricardo Daniel Mondragon Leal (left photo), age 37
The cruise crime data, released earlier this week as part of the quarterly reporting by the Department of Transportation (DOT), again shows that Carnival Cruise Line clearly has the most sexual assaults and rapes as well as the most physical assault with serious personal injuries, both in total numbers and on a per capita basis.
A resident of Polk City, Florida was arrested at the Port of Tampa on charges of possessing and transporting child pornography on the Margaritaville at Sea’s Islander, according to a local news station in Tampa.
James Oxley, age 52, boarded the Islander cruise ship, operated by Margaritaville at Sea, on December 17, 2025 for
There is a reason why Carnival cruise ships have the highest per capita rate of sexual assaults on the high seas, as this case demonstrates.
Last week, after a two-week trial, a federal jury found Jalen Thomas Kelley, age 22, guilty of aggravated sexual abuse, sexual abuse, and assault of a minor aboard the Carnival
