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Two cruise visitors had been charged with utilizing fraudulent reward playing cards to guide a cruise aboard Carnival Dawn. A 3rd suspect, who didn’t cruise, additionally faces fees.
US Customs and Border Safety brokers arrested the 2 cruisers when Carnival Dawn returned to her base at PortMiami on August 18, 2025.
There have been no impacts to the ship’s debarkation, and the vessel departed on schedule for her subsequent Caribbean voyage.
Numerous cruisers use reward playing cards to guide cruises and make onboard purchases, however two Carnival Cruise Line visitors who used reward playing cards allegedly acquired by fraudulent means are in authorized bother.
The visitors, Rogerio da Cunha Fernandes, 45, and Aida Parada la Paz, 43, had sailed aboard Carnival Dawn on a 4-night Bahamas cruise that departed from PortMiami on August 14, 2025.
Upon returning to the port on August 18, 2025, each had been arrested by US Customs and Border Safety brokers.
In accordance with native media studies, the 2 visitors had been charged with shopping for reward playing cards utilizing an altered Bolivian financial institution card. A 3rd suspect faces fees as nicely, though she didn’t sail on the ship.
Fernandes and La Paz allegedly booked their Carnival Dawn cruise on July 26, 2025 utilizing reward playing cards fraudulently bought at a Winn-Dixie retail retailer.
The Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Workplace said that some 230 fraudulent gross sales or purchases had been made by at the least one of many three suspects. The third suspect, Beatriz Paz-Roca, 66, was arrested the identical day as Fernandes and La Paz, at a Winn-Dixie in close by Doral, Florida.
All three had been charged with grand theft and arranged scheme to defraud. Police mentioned that Fernandes and La Paz fraudulently obtained $18,000 from the reward card conspiracy, whereas Paz-Roca obtained about $12,000.
Federal brokers boarded the ship and searched Fernandes and La Paz when Carnival Dawn returned to PortMiami, and reported they discovered the Bolivian financial institution card and different fraudulently bought reward playing cards.
Police mentioned they knew the 2 had been onboard the Carnival ship due to a social media posting apparently made by one of many suspects. All three suspects share a residence in Miami.
Fernandes, who hails from Brazil, and La Paz, a Bolivian nationwide, had been held on a $10,000 bond and an immigration maintain, whereas Paz-Roca, additionally from Bolivia, was held on the identical bond however was not topic to an immigration maintain.
Learn Additionally: What to Anticipate When You Go on a Carnival Cruise
Carnival Dawn, in the meantime, debarked her visitors as regular on August 18, 2025 and departed on her subsequent voyage, a 5-night Jap Caribbean cruise.
The 4-night crusing on which Fernandes and La Paz sailed had referred to as at Half Moon Cay and Celebration Key, each personal island locations operated by Carnival Company.
Cruise fares for the brief voyage begin at about $344 per particular person for an inside cabin, rising to about $900 per particular person for suite lodging.
How Frequent Is Credit score Card Fraud on Cruise Ships?
Bank card-related fraud is just not a typical drawback on cruise ships, however it does happen every now and then. In August 2024, 4 visitors aboard MSC Cruises’ MSC Magnifica on a crusing from PortMiami had been arrested when the ship returned to port.
They’d allegedly used fraudulent bank cards within the ship’s on line casino, making an attempt to money out massive sums of cash.
In one other case, in 2023, a cruise visitor aboard Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas was arrested as that ship returned to PortMiami and charged with paying for the household trip with stolen bank cards.
Carnival Dawn is the previous Carnival Triumph. The three,000-guest ship entered service in 1999. Cruise-watchers will bear in mind Carnival Triumph as the placement of the so-called Poop Cruise of 2013, when an engine hearth knocked out energy and the ship drifted for days.
The unlucky occasion left 1000’s of visitors with out air-con, working bogs, and different requirements, and was not too long ago featured within the Netflix anthology referred to as “Trainwreck.”
In 2019, Carnival Triumph obtained a serious renovation and a brand new identify — Carnival Dawn.
Cruise Company Charged With Utilizing Fraudulent Present Playing cards to Pay For Crusing
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