Cruise Guests Charged With Using Fraudulent Gift Cards to Pay For Sailing

Lots of cruisers use gift cards to book cruises and make onboard purchases, but two Carnival Cruise Line guests who used gift cards allegedly acquired by fraudulent means are in legal trouble.

The guests, Rogerio da Cunha Fernandes, 45, and Aida Parada la Paz, 43, had sailed aboard Carnival Sunrise on a 4-night Bahamas cruise that departed from PortMiami on August 14, 2025.

Upon returning to the port on August 18, 2025, both were arrested by US Customs and Border Protection agents.

According to local media reports, the two guests were charged with buying gift cards using an altered Bolivian bank card. A third suspect faces charges as well, although she did not sail on the ship.

Fernandes and La Paz allegedly booked their Carnival Sunrise cruise on July 26, 2025 using gift cards fraudulently purchased at a Winn-Dixie retail store.

The Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office stated that some 230 fraudulent sales or purchases were made by at least one of the three suspects. The third suspect, Beatriz Paz-Roca, 66, was arrested the same day as Fernandes and La Paz, at a Winn-Dixie in nearby Doral, Florida.

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All three were charged with grand theft and organized scheme to defraud. Police said that Fernandes and La Paz fraudulently received $18,000 from the gift card conspiracy, while Paz-Roca received about $12,000.

Federal agents boarded the ship and searched Fernandes and La Paz when Carnival Sunrise returned to PortMiami, and reported they found the Bolivian bank card and other fraudulently purchased gift cards.

Police said they knew the two were onboard the Carnival ship thanks to a social media posting apparently made by one of the suspects. All three suspects share a residence in Miami.

Fernandes, who hails from Brazil, and La Paz, a Bolivian national, were held on a $10,000 bond and an immigration hold, while Paz-Roca, also from Bolivia, was held on the same bond but was not subject to an immigration hold.

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Carnival Sunrise, meanwhile, debarked her guests as usual on August 18, 2025 and departed on her next voyage, a 5-night Eastern Caribbean cruise.

The 4-night sailing on which Fernandes and La Paz sailed had called at Half Moon Cay and Celebration Key, both private island destinations operated by Carnival Corporation.

Cruise fares for the short voyage start at about $344 per person for an inside cabin, rising to about $900 per person for suite accommodations.

How Common Is Credit Card Fraud on Cruise Ships?

Credit card-related fraud is not a common problem on cruise ships, but it does occur from time to time. In August 2024, four guests aboard MSC Cruises’ MSC Magnifica on a sailing from PortMiami were arrested when the ship returned to port.

They had allegedly used fraudulent credit cards in the ship’s casino, attempting to cash out large sums of money.

In another case, in 2023, a cruise guest aboard Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas was arrested as that ship returned to PortMiami and charged with paying for the family vacation with stolen credit cards.

Carnival Sunrise is the former Carnival Triumph. The 3,000-guest ship entered service in 1999. Cruise-watchers will remember Carnival Triumph as the location of the so-called Poop Cruise of 2013, when an engine fire knocked out power and the ship drifted for days.

The unfortunate event left thousands of guests without air conditioning, working bathrooms, and other necessities, and was recently featured in the Netflix anthology called “Trainwreck.”

In 2019, Carnival Triumph received a major renovation and a new name — Carnival Sunrise.