Report a Tip
Retain our Firm

Local NBC-6 station reports that a 33-year-old crew member was arrested at PortMiami this past weekend on charges of possessing child pornography.

NBC-6 reports today that Komang Parianta was taken into custody after U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) conducted a search of his cabin, where two videos of child sexual abuse material were discovered.

The child porn videos reportedly were found on Parianta’s cellphone. The videos revealed a “girl around five years old” being sexually abused by a man as well as a “girl between 12 to 13 years old” also being abused.

After Parianta was arrested, he was transported to Miami-Dade Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center (TGK) and booked.

Parianta attended criminal court in Miami where a judge set a $20,000 bond ($5,000 for each felony count).

Parianta is the sixth crew member to be arrested for child pornography in a period of slightly more than three months. Celebrity crew member Dennis Ofrancia De Leon, age 44, who worked on the Celebrity Reflection, was arrested two weeks ago after Homeland Security agents found “multiple videos/photographs” depicting child sexual abuse material.

Tirso Anthony Neri, age 44, worked as a crew member on the Disney Dream, and was charged with violating 18 USC 2252(a)(i) (transportation of child pornography) and 2252(a)(4)(B) (possession of child pornography) after agents for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations found pornographic images of children as young as age nine on his cell phones. Two other Disney crew members were also arrested.  Disney ship employee Alvin Gonzalez, age 49, was arrested on the Disney Dream in early February of this year for possession of a video of a boy, believed to be as young as 8, and a girl, estimated to be as young as 12. Amiel Trazo, another Disney crew member, age 28, was arrested in late February on charges of possessing numerous materials depicting graphic child sexual abuse “with children between the approximate ages of 6 and 14.”

Twenty-six year old Jamaal Wade was employed by RWS Global as a dancer / performer on a Holland America Line (HAL) cruise ship after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) discovered a large collection of graphic images of child pornography “involving minors as young as two years old engaged in sexual acts with adults.”

State law enforcement officers in Florida have jurisdiction to investigate crimes on cruise ships departing and returning to ports in Florida.

NBC-6 did not report on the identity of Mr. Parianta’s employer or the name of the cruise ship where he worked.

Are there any crew members with knowledge where Mr. Parianta was employed?

Have a comment or question? Please leave one below or join the discussion on our Facebook page.

May 13 PM Update:

May 14 Update: We received reliable information that Mr. Parianta, an Indonesian, was working as a waiter for Royal Caribbean aboard the Icon of the Seas.

Image credit: Komang Parianta – NBC-6

We recently received information regarding the crew member from Ambassador’s Ambience cruise ship who was lost at sea last week.

His name is Ison Dias, age 27, from Goa, India. He is single and survived by two parents who are reportedly living in the U.K. where the Ambience is home-ported. He reportedly was last seen on CCTV video in the early morning of May 3, 2024 on an open deck of the cruise ship. There was a delay of around 7 hours between the time that he went overboard and when the ship turned around to retrace its path.

Mr. Dias reportedly joined the ship in early March of this year. This was his first contract.

His Instagram page shows a handsome young lad who appeared to be well liked by his friends and obviously loved by his parents.

Condolences to Mr. Dias’s family, friends and co-employees.

We have not received any explanation why or how he went overboard from the cruise ship.

Have a comment or question? Please leave one below or join the discussion on our Facebook page:

May 11, 2024 Update:

From a local web page “Rising GOA” from Mr. Dias’ home city:

Image credit: Mr. Dias – Instagram of Ison Dias.

A passenger has reportedly gone overboard from the Pacific Adventure cruise ship as it approached Sydney, Australia. Nearby vessels and a police helicopter are searching the waters near Sydney as the search for the missing cruise guest continues.

Newspapers in Australia report that P&O’s Pacific Adventure was due in Sydney Harbour before 6 a.m. but as of 7 a.m., remains in waters off what are called the “Eastern Suburbs.” “Pacific Adventure is currently undertaking a search and rescue operation off Sydney after a person overboard alarm was raised at 4 a.m.,” a P&O Cruises Australia spokesperson stated to news.com.au.

Andres Vargas, a passenger on the Carnival Splendor which is sitting idle nearby, sent images of the P&O ship to news.com.au.

New South Wales Police confirmed a search is underway to the Australian newspaper.

“Police are leading the search of waters off Sydney following reports a person was in the water,” a spokesperson told news.com.au.

The report was received just after 4am that “a person had gone overboard” 10 nautical miles outside Sydney Heads.

The Pacific Adventure was sailing on a three day roundtrip cruise from Sydney called the “Tribute To The King” (Elvis). The itinerary started on May 3, 2024 and ends on May 6, 2024.

There is no information currently disclosed how, why or when the person went overboard.

According to cruise expert Dr. Ross Klein, who maintains the definitive list of people going overboard and has testified before the U.S. Congress several times regarding cruise ship overboards, this was the 409th person to go overboard from a cruise ship (or ferry) in the last 24 years. By all accounts, the Pacific Adventure was not equipped with an automatic man overboard (MOB) system. State-of-the-art MOB systems automatically send a signal to the bridge that a person has gone over the rails via a motion detection alarm which can capture an image of the person and then can track the person in the water via radar (using infrared technology at night). Such systems are relatively inexpensive to install (U.S. $300,000 – $400,00) and are readily available on the maritime market.

The Pacific Adventure is owed by cruise giant Carnival Corporation. No cruise ships in its nearly 100 cruise ship fleet have life saving state-of-the-art MOB systems installed. The result is what you see here.

Have a comment or question? Please leave one below or join the discussion on our Facebook page.

May 6, 2024 Update:

A number of newspapers are reporting that after a search of around 6 hours, a body was located.

May 15, 2024 Update:

Image credit: Pacific Adventure – Andres Vargas via news.com.au

A crew member is missing at sea from an around-the-world cruise operated by Ambassador Cruise Line, according to the BBC. The unidentified crew member worked aboard the Ambience cruise ship.

The cruise ship departed from Lisbon, Portugal, bound for Tilbury in Essex (U.K.) on Thursday afternoon. He reportedly could not be located on the cruise ship this morning and was reported missing after breakfast.

A spokeswoman for Ambassador Cruise Line told that the BBC that a “full and thorough” search of the ship had been conducted and it was being reversed to retrace its route. This is typical of cruise ships which are not equipped with automatic man overboard (MOB) systems; instead of immediately searching in the water when a guest or ship employee goes overboard, the ship will waste time looking on the ship for the missing crew member.

Ambassador claims that it “is committed to the safety and wellbeing of all our crew and guests,” but it failed to install a life-saving MOB system on the ship which would provide timely notice of the overboard employee and permit a prompt search and rescue.

The Ambience was on the final cruise of its around-the-world tour at the time of the crew member’s disappearance.

According to cruise expert Dr. Ross Klein, who provides the definitive data of people who have gone overboard, 408 people have fallen or jumped from cruise ships and ferries since 2000.

In reviewing the data maintained by Dr. Klein and after closely studying the phenomenon of people going overboard for the past 20 years, there are some general conclusions I have reached. The vast majority (probably over 90%) of crew members who go overboard do so intentionally due to long hours of work, long contracts on the ships (6-10 months) away from their families, and lack of psychological support from their employers. The majority of passengers, on the other hand, who go overboard do so due to excessive alcohol sold by the cruise ship.

The Coast Guard reportedly has taken on the delayed search for the crew member while the Ambience is now sailing back to its final port in the U.K. to take on a new round of passengers.

Have a comment or question? Please leave one below or join the discussion on our Facebook page.

May 4, 2024 Update:

The Spanish Coast Guard called of its belated search for the crew member.

Business Insider, which is one of the few newspapers which doesn’t simply repeat the misleading comments by the cruise industry, previously interviewed Dr. Ross Klein:

May 6, 2024 Update:

We received information about the missing crew member.

Image credit: Ambassador Ambience cruise ship – Pjotr Mahhonin – CC BY-SA 4.0 commons / wikimedia.

A Celebrity Cruises crew member was arrested in Fort Lauderdale by federal agents who found child sexual abuse material on his phone when he disembarked in Port Everglades.

According to Local 10 News (WPLG), who reviewed criminal federal court documents (which you can review here), Celebrity crew member Dennis Ofrancia De Leon, age 44, a Filipino national, disembarked the Celebrity Reflection on Monday. Homeland Security agents found “multiple videos/photographs” depicting child sexual abuse material. The criminal court file indicated that the agents found videos “showing boys and girls being raped or otherwise sexually abused . . .”

The court file indicated that De Leon admitted to viewing content showing victims under the age of 10.

This is at least the fourth or fifth crew member arrested in South Florida for possession of graphic child pornoghraphy in just the last three months, to wit:

  • Tirso Anthony Neri, age 44, a crew member on the Disney Dream cruise ship based in Port Everglades, was charged last month with violating 18 USC 2252(a)(i) (transportation of child pornography) and 2252(a)(4)(B) (possession of child pornography) after agents for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations found pornographic images of children as young as age nine on his cell phones.
  • Disney ship employee Alvin Gonzalez, age 49, was also arrested on the Disney Dream in early February of this year for possession of a video of a boy, believed to be as young as 8, and a girl, estimated to be as young as 12, having intercourse with each other.
  • Amiel Trazo, another Disney crew member on the Disney Dream, age 28, was arrested in late February on charges of possessing numerous materials depicting graphic child sexual abuse “with children between the approximate ages of 6 and 14.”
  • Jamaal Wade, a dancer hired by RWS Global to work on a cruise ship operated by Holland America Line (HAL) was arrested last month for possessing a large quantity of child pornography (more than 15 videos), which he brought on the ship, depicting children as young as “two years old engaged in sexual acts with adults.” Wade was hired to perform on the HAL cruise ship notwithstanding that he had a criminal record which included charges of molesting an 11-year-old boy.

Top left – Tirso Anthony Neri (Disney Dream); top right – Anthony Gonzalez (Disney Dream); bottom left – Amiel Trazo (Disney Dream); and Cris Castor (Celebrity Silhouette).

This is not the first time that a Celebrity crew member was arrested on charges of possessing child sexual abuse materials. Cris John Pentinio Castor, a Celebrity youth counselor, was arrested after sexually abusing at least four children aboard the Celebrity Silhouette after a 6-year-old came forward and reported him.

The significant number of crew members arrested for child pornography raises questions of the cruise industry’s hiring protocols. There is no sexual predator database outside of the U.S. where these particular crew members were hired. It is clear to us after reviewing hundreds of crew member personnel files over the years that cruise lines do not perform adequate investigations into the pre-employment history of prospective employees.

You can read more about the problem of crew members possessing child abuse materials and child molestation on cruise ships on our blog here and here.

Have a comment or question? Please leave on below or join the discussion on our Facebook page,

Image credit: Celebrity Reflection – Master0Garfield commons/wikimedia; Dennis De Leon; Local 10 News (WPLG)

Numerous newspapers have been reporting that cruise ships operated by Princess Cruises and Royal Caribbean International experienced gastrointestinal (GI) outbreaks in the last week. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) initially reported that norovirus outbreaks sickened over three percent of the passengers on both the Sapphire Princess, operated by Princess, and the Radiance of the Seas, operated by Royal Caribbean, with the predominant symptoms being diarrhea and vomiting.

The CDC reported last week that the total number of passengers on the Sapphire Princess who reported ill were 94 of 2,532 (3.71%); with 67 of 1,993 (3.36%) guests sickened on the Radiance of the Seas. The CDC also reported that 20 crew members on the Sapphire Princess and 2 ship employees in the Radiance of the Seas have been affected.

Today, the CDC is reporting that the number of sick passengers on the Sapphire Princess increased from 94 to 115 of 2,532 (4.54%) and the number of ill crew members increased from 20 to 28 of 1,066 (2.62%).

The outbreak on the Sapphire Princess is taking place on a 32 day cruise from Los Angeles to Hawaii, Samoa, Fiji and the Polynesian islands which ends in Los Angeles on May 7th. Since the cruise is currently underway, it is possible that additional passengers and ship employees may report ill to the ship infirmary.

The outbreak on the Radiance of the Seas occurred during a two week cruise from Tampa to Los Angeles which ended on April 22nd. The Royal Caribbean ship is now sailing an itinerary from Vancouver to Alaska.

The CDC reports that the disease outbreaks on these two ships was caused by norovirus, which typically is the result of contaminated food and/or water according to both the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

This is the sixth GI outbreak over the last four months on a cruise ship returning to a U.S. port this year. Five of the outbreaks were caused by norovirus. Sixteen (16) of the last seventeen (17) GI outbreaks on cruise ships, dating back to the beginning of last year, were due to norovirus (with one case attributable to Salmonella and E. coli). 

Norovirus can also be easily spread through airborne transmission which can further complicate matters on cruise ships. Washing your hands is of little to no effectiveness if the method of transmission is via contaminated food from the galley which is further spread in the air in crowded quarters.

One of the shortcomings of the CDC’s Vessel Sanitation Program (VSP) is that the CDC does not make an effort to determine how GI outbreak occur. The CDC does not make factual, scientific determinations regarding the actual source of the disease transmission (i.e., a particular type of food and/or water and the location of the initial outbreak). This is probably due to the limited resources of the CDC and the quick turn around of cruise ships in U.S. ports.

The cruise industry has no interest in actually determining why a specific outbreak takes place. Most cruise lines will always claim that a guest brought the virus aboard the ship and other passengers then failed to wash their hands. Neither the CDC nor cruise lines investigate whether galley staff and/or food handlers were working while infected. There is no analysis what the passengers, who became ill, last ate or were served during the same seating and/or by the same waiters. There is no tracking by cruise lines of illnesses due to the type of food served during the cruise. This is to be sharply contrasted with shore-side major restaurant businesses in the U.S. when a disease outbreak occurs. Chipotle, for example, has a reputation of determining the specific source of an norovirus outbreak and then focusing on the distributor which supplied the particular contaminated sprouts, lettuce or other food item.

Interested in this issue? We suggest reading the article After Years of Decline, Norovirus Outbreaks Surge on Cruise Ships and our article about a GI outbreak on another Princess cruise ship, the Ruby Princess, a little over a year ago:

Over 200 Sickened by Gastrointestinal Illness on Ruby Princess – U.S. Health Officials Now Boarding Cruise Ship in Galveston to Investigate

Have a comment or question? Please leave one below or join the discussion on our Facebook page.

Image Credit: Gastroenteritis viruses – Graham Beards wikipedia / creative commons CC 3.0; Royal Caribbean’s Radiance of the Seas – Fletcher6 – CC BY-SA 3.0 commons / wikimedia; and Princess Cruises’ Sapphire Princess – Pjotr Mahhonin – CC BY-SA 4.0 commons / wikimedia.

.

U.S. Federal agents arrested a man working as a crew member for Disney Cruise Line on two federal charges for possessing numerous child sexual abuse material, according to a criminal complaint filed yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida (Broward County).

Tirso Anthony Neri, age 44, was identified in court records as a crew member on the Disney Dream cruise ship based in Port Everglades. Neri was charged with violating 18 USC 2252(a)(i) (transportation of child pornography) and 2252(a)(4)(B) (possession of child pornography) after agents for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations found pornographic images of children as young as age nine on his cell phones.

Crew member Neri is the third crew member on the Disney Dream to be arrested in the last two months. Disney ship employee Alvin Gonzalez, age 49, was also arrested on the Disney Dream in early February of this year for possession of a video of a boy, believed to be as young as 8, and a girl, estimated to be as young as 12, having intercourse with each other. Amiel Trazo, another Disney crew member, age 28, was arrested in late February on charges of possessing numerous materials depicting graphic child sexual abuse “with children between the approximate ages of 6 and 14.”

Crew Member on Disney Dream Arrested on Child Pornography Charges

Second Disney Crew Member on Disney Dream Cruise Ship Arrested on Child Pornography Charges

The investigation into Disney crew member Neri began in mid-December of last year. Neri waived his Miranda rights and admitted in questioning by federal agents that he participated in several group chats on Telegraph and Facebook Messenger chat apps from which he downloaded pornography online.

These three Disney crew members are just some of the numerous sexual pedophile perverts recently caught by U.S. authorities on cruise ships. Cris John Pentinio Castor, a 35 year-old cruise ship youth counselor employed by Celebrity Cruises, was arrested in December of 2023 for sexually abusing a 6-year-old girl in the youth center of the Celebrity Silhouette during a cruise to the Caribbean. Castor subsequently waived his Miranda rights and voluntarily told FBI investigators that he molested not only the girl but at least three other minor children while they were visiting the center on the cruise ship since August.

Celebrity Cruises Youth Counselor Admits to Molesting At Least Four Children Aboard the Celebrity Silhouette 

Some of the most notorious sexual crimes involving minors involved two Princess Cruises ship employees, including an assistant cruise director, who were sentenced last year to combined terms of over 45 years in federal prison for child pornography and sexual assault.

Daniel Scott Crow, employed by Princess Cruises as an assistant cruise director, was sentenced late last year by Southern District of Florida Judge Jose Martinez to thirty (30) years in prison for enticing an underage child to engage in sex with him and take part in the production of child pornography. Crow was thirty-five (35) years of age when he met the sixteen (16) year old child during a cruise in July 2019 on an unidentified Princess Cruises ship. A press release by the Department of Justice (DOJ) sets forth the basic facts of the disturbing sexual crimes committed by Crowe.

A second Princess crew member, Angelo Victor Fernandes, from India, age 34, worked on the same Princess cruise ship as Crow. Fernandes was friends with Crow and the two men discussed “obtaining children for sex.” Fernandes admitted to federal agents when he was arrested that he was sexually attracted to Crow and sent him sexually explicit videos and child pornography in exchange for videos of Crow masturbating. The two crew members discussed travelling to sexually abuse children as young as five years of age. Judge Aileen Cannon, of the federal district court in Fort Pierce, Florida, sentenced Fernandes last week to 188 months (over 15 and1/2 years) in prison. A press release by the DOJ sets forth the basic facts of the crimes committed by Fernandes.

Two Princess Crew Members, Including An Assistant Cruise Director, Sentenced to Over 45 Years for Child Pornography and Sex Scheme

We have repeatedly reported that approximately one-third of sexual crimes on cruise ships involve minors. It’s dangerous to leave your children alone on cruise ships or trust ship employees with your kids. There is no sexual predator database outside of the U.S. where these particular crew members were hired. We have handled over one-hundred and twenty-five sexual assault cases against passengers on cruise ships over the past twenty years. Approximately over-third of the cases involved minors.

The prime location we have concluded for a crew member to assault young children is in the guest cabin. Cabin attendants can use their master key cards to enter cabins if and when parents leave their kids, thinking it’s safe to go to a club or bar at night.

Have a comment or question? Please leave one below or join the discussion on our Facebook page.

Image credit: Disney Dream – ajmexico CC BY 2.0 commons / wikimedia; TIRSO ANTHONY NERI – tricountybests.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that the Silver Nova cruise ship operated by Silversea Cruises is experiencing a gastrointestinal (GI) outbreak which has sickened 23 of 633 passengers (3.63%) and 1 of 538 crew members (0.19%). The predominant symptom reported by the CDC is diarrhea.

The CDC has not yet identified the causative agent for the GI outbreak. Sixteen (16) of the last seventeen (17) GI outbreaks on cruise ships, dating back to the beginning of last year, were due to norovirus (with one case attributable to Salmonella and E. coli). The CDC does not always determine the cause of the outbreak which in this case may be because the cruise ship has not yet called on a U.S. port where stool samples of the affected passengers can be collected and tested.

The Silver Nova is currently near the end of a 16 day, one-way “Easter Cruise” from Callao-Lima to Fort Lauderdale, which calls on Port Everglades tomorrow.

According to the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), norovirus outbreaks are primarily caused by eating contaminated food and/or drinking contaminated water.

This is the fourth (4th) GI outbreak on a cruise ship this year. Last year, there were fourteen (14th) outbreaks with Princess Cruises and Celebrity Cruises each experiencing three (3) outbreaks.

Have a comment or question? Please leave one below or join the discussion on our Facebook page.

April 15, 2024 Evening Update:

The number of infected passengers increased to 28 out of 633 (4.42%).

April 15, 2024 Update:

Because the Silver Nova is a new cruise ship (with its maiden voyage on August 14, 2023 and christened in January 2024), the ship has not yet had a bi-annual sanitation inspection by the CDC.

April 16, 2024 Update:

The New York Post, reporting on this outbreak, has it exactly correct when it writes: “The cause of the outbreak — which has impacted roughly 5% of the ship’s passenger population — is still unknown, but the CDC notes that norovirus outbreaks are primarily caused by eating contaminated food or drinking contaminated water.”

Image credit: Silver Nova – Narwhalian1 – CC BY-SA 4.0 commons / wikimedia; gastrointestinal virus – Dr Graham Beards.

On Saturday morning, Holland America Line (HAL)’s M/S Rotterdam arrived at Port Everglades after a six day cruise to Mexico and the Western Caribbean without one of its crew members. HAL didn’t realize that one of its ship employees disappeared during the cruise until, apparently, another crew member noticed that he had not reported to work on Saturday morning. The HAL cruise ship then reviewed its shipboard closed circuit television (CCTV) images and eventually observed the unidentified crew member going into the water the preceding evening as the ship was returning to port.

A local CBS station in Miami reported that HAL reported the crew member missing only after the Rotterdam docked in Fort Lauderdale on Saturday morning. Shipboard security reviewed CCTV video which showed the crew member going overboard “around 9:45 p.m” on Friday evening. According to this news station, it was not until “around 11:18 a.m. Saturday,” that the Broward County Sheriff’s Office at the port responded to HAL’s first report that a crew member was missing from the ship.

By the time that the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) announced that it was searching for the crew member, nearly twenty-four hours had elapsed since the man went overboard.

There is a discrepancy in where exactly the crew member went overboard. HAL reportedly told the local CBS station that the crew member went overboard “while the vessel was still en route between Cuba and Key West” but the USCG reported that it was searching in water “20 miles south of Marathon,” several hundred miles away.

The surreal nature of the reporting of this latest person going overboard from a cruise ship is that by the time that the USGC reported that it was finally searching for the crew member somewhere near the Florida keys, the M/S Rotterdam was already sailing in a different direction on the next cruise to Europe.

The image of the USCG searching in waters near Marathon, Florida as the Rotterdam sailed in the opposite direction pretty much sums up the sad state of affairs of the cruise industry which steadfastly refuses to install state-of-the-art automatic MOB technology which would instantly detect a person going over the rails and alert the bridge.

Cruise fan pages of course do not report on such issues or anything that might embarrass the cruise industry. The Cruise Hive publication, (which does not mention the absence of a MOB system or the delay in reporting, misleadingly writes “search operation are already underway in the exact area of the incident”), reported that there was “no impact to sailings” as a result of the the disappearance of the crew member as the “ship has already departed on its next sailing with no delay.”

Arriving at port without a cruise member on a ship which refuses to install technology which would instantly notify it when someone goes overboard is not only embarrassing but borders on criminal indifference in my view. The task of searching for overboard crew members and passengers, which can easily cost a million dollars of U.S. taxpayer dollars (which the foreign flagged cruise industry does not reimburse), always falls on the USCG while cruise ships from where the person fell, jumped or were thrown scurry to the next port so as not to inconvenience the next round of thousands of cruise guests ready to start their vacation.

HAL claims that the crew member allegedly jumped overboard and was quick to report this to the local news station and publications like Cruise Hive (“the person went purposefully overboard” says HAL). Of course, the obligation of cruise companies to install MOB systems on cruise ships calling on U.S. ports exists regardless of whether the person went overboard intentionally or was thrown or fell.

Assuming the crew member went overboard in an intentional effort to end his or her own life raises the issue of why the unidentified crew member committed suicide (which is the most frequent explanation when a crew member goes overboard). Contracts that last as long as 8 to 10 months, grueling work hours and conditions (which would be illegal if U.S. applied), alienation from family members and friends back home, and a lack of mental health resources on ships are factors we have raised for over a decade.

This case illustrates the sad state of the cruise industry: ignore the legal obligation to install like-saving MOB technology (required by the 2010 Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act), delay for half a day in reporting the missing crew member, then sail off in the opposite direction on the next cruise with a shipload of new customers while the USCG performs a belated search by air and sea for the overboard employee who the company is quickly blame in the first place.

According to the comprehensive reporting of cruise expert Dr. Ross Klein, there have been at least 407 people who have gone overboard from cruise ships (and a few ferries) in the last 25 years.

Carnival Corporation, the owner of the M/S Rotterdam, has not installed a single MOB system in its fleet of around 100 cruise ships since the CVSSA required such systems over 12 years ago.

Have a comment or question? Pease leave on below or join the discussion on our Facebook page.

Image credit: M/S Rotterdam – kees torn via Wikipedia Commons; AIS image – cruisemapper.

A dancer employed on an unidentified cruise ship was recently arrested in Broward County on one charge of possession of child pornography and a second count of receipt and distribution of child pornography.

Twenty-six year old Jamaal Wade appeared in federal court in Fort Lauderdale in case number 0:24-mj-06151-PMH. A special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) verified in a complaint alleging violation of 18 USC 2252A that Wade engaged in prior criminal sexual abuse of a child, in addition to the following criminal acts of possessing and distributing graphic images of child pornography, to wit:

  • In August 2023. Wade sent another Telegraph user “eight videos” containing child sexual abuse materials “involving minors as young as two years old engaged in sexual acts with adults,” adding “I have way more.”
  • At some time after October 2023, Wade met with the person who he has previously sent child pornography videos to via the Telegram app, and they watched child sexual abuse videos together at his apartment on 172nd street in Washington Heights, New York.
  • On January 14, 2024, Wade sent a video depicting child sexual abuse materials, to a covert FBI agent operating a Telegram account, involving an underage boy, noting “that the child depicted in the video is 11 or 12 years old,” adding that he “has a ton of videos.”
  • On January 23, 2024, Wade sent the FBI covert agent eight videos depicting male children “between the ages of approximately four and eight years old engaged in (graphic) sexual activities . . . with adult males.”
  • Wade was was previously arrested in Detroit, Michigan in February of 2020 for “rubbing the penis of an 11-year-old boy” while on a tour for a performance group before he worked on a cruise ship. (The FBI agent indicated that he reviewed records from the Detroit Police Department regarding this crime). The OnStage Blog “noted that the show would have put him in direct contact with children both in the show and attending performances.”

The FBI agent indicated that Wade is a professional dancer “currently employed” on board a cruise ship, which was not identified. On March 22, 2024, Wade communicated with an undercover FBI agent via a Telegram app and indicated that he “brought his collection” of child sexual abuse materials “on board the ship.”

A local news station, Miami Local 10 News, reported that “court documents do not specify which cruise line employed him at the time of his arrest; a profile of Wade states he has worked for both Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise Lines.” The criminal court records do not identify the particular cruise line which last employed Wade. However, the file does indicate that one unidentified cruise line, which the FBI contacted, verified that he worked on a cruise ship as late as two weeks ago. Since he was arrested in Broward County (but his permanent residence is in New York), he may have been arrested when the cruise ship where he worked returned to Port Everglades.

The fact that this child pervert and predator worked on cruise ships raises the fundamental and disturbing recurrent question: did any of the cruise lines require any type of background check be performed before Wade was hired to work on one of their cruise ships?

And why would the FBI refuse to identify this pedophile’s cruise line employer, Norwegian, Royal Caribbean or some other company?

Wade could face up to 20 years in prison on each count if convicted.

Have a question or comment? Please leave one below or join the discussion on our Facebook page.

April 13, 2024 Update:

Wade’s Facebook page indicates that he was working as a dancer on a Holland America Line cruise ship. He worked for Royal Caribbean from 2017 to 2019 and for Norwegian Cruise Line before then.

Image credit: Image of Jamaal Wade and criminal court filings – USA v. JAMAAL WADE case number 0:24-mj-06151-PMH, Federal District Court Southern District of Florida (Fort Lauderdale FL) and Local 10 News (Miami).

April 18, 2024 Update:

Two individuals, with knowledge of performances and the hiring of dancers on HAL and other cruise lines, who both wish to remain anonymous, inform me that a third party was responsible for hiring Mr. Wade. They identified RWS Global as the company which hires dancers and other performers on HAL cruise ships and designs and produces the show performances at sea.

RWS’ portfolio lists a number of cruise lines and cruise ships such as MSC Cruises (MSC World Europa), Marella Cruises, P&O Cruises, Cunard Cruises, and TUI Group, in addition to HAL Cruises (Step One Dance Company).

RWS reportedly does not perform background checks into sexual misconduct of the performers who they hire to work on cruise ships. It does not appear that HAL conduct any type of background check on dancers/performers at all. This may explain how Mr. Wade was permitted to work on a cruise ship, notwithstanding the fact that he had been arrested in Detroit for sexually molesting an 11 year-old boy according to a verified complaint filed in the criminal case filed against Mr. Wade.

We contacted RWS and requested whether it performed a background check before it hired Mr. Wade and whether it terminated him after his arrest. RWS has not responded to our questions.