When on a cruise vacation, I can imagine nothing less relaxing than worrying that the cruise line vacation planner might have given your home address to thieves, who were breaking into your house as you waited in line for the midnight buffet on the cruise ship.
Bethsaida Sandoval, a vacation planner for Royal Caribbean, has been charged supplying her husband with passenger information which he then used to burglarize their homes while the passengers were on vacation. Ms. Sandoval and her husband, John Lopez, have been each charged with 20 counts of burglary and one count of racketeering. She is no longer employed by Royal Caribbean.
Royal Caribbean employee accused of burglarizing customers’ homes while they were on cruises
Bethsaida Sandoval didn’t just send people off on luxury cruises. She burglarized their homes as well, authorities said Friday.
The Royal Caribbean Cruises employee was arrested Thursday and charged with burglarizing the homes of 20 South Florida customers who were away on cruises.
Sandoval — who lives in Miami and worked at Royal Caribbean’s office in Miramar for about six years as a vacation planner — accessed passengers’ personal information and told her husband when they would be away.
The couple, married last year, began their crime spree in November, detectives said. They scouted out homes and made notes of whether anyone else would be home and what security measures the homes had, investigators said. Many of the homes burglarized did not have their alarms on, authorities said.
Lopez broke into the homes — usually by smashing a rear sliding glass door — while Sandoval waited outside in a black SUV, the Sheriff’s Office said. A few times he worked with another accomplice instead, the Sheriff’s Office said.
“They waited until the first day the ship sailed” to burglarize the homes, Johnson said. “They wanted to make sure no one was home.”
Officials of Royal Caribbean Cruises could not be reached for comment Friday, despite attempts by phone and e-mail. Sandoval was fired on Thursday when she was arrested, Johnson said.
This is a horrible story and shocking to think that somebody would abuse their clients’ trust in this way. People who take cruises do so regularly and tend to find one travel agent they like and use time and time again. They build up a great relationship with their agent and even treat them more like a friend than somebody they are doing a simple business transaction with. For somebody to abuse this position in this way is sickening. most people in the world are good, but unfortunately it’s the bad ones you remember!
Fortunately, it is a extremely rare occurrence and not limited to cruise line employees. One hears similar stories of postal workers or those working in newspaper circulation departments who are notified when people are away on vacation committing similar crimes. And you are correct, the relatively rarity of the act is what makes it so memorable.