Tourism & Cruises

Second Disney Dream cruise employee hoarded numerous child porn videos, officials say

A second Disney Cruise Line crew member aboard the Disney Dream was charged with possessing child pornography, federal officials said.
A second Disney Cruise Line crew member aboard the Disney Dream was charged with possessing child pornography, federal officials said. Orlando Sentinel / TNS

Another Disney Cruise Line employee possessed “numerous sexually explicit” photos and videos of young children, federal officials said. He is the cruise line’s third worker to be arrested for child pornography this year.

Back in December, Tirso Neri arrived on the Disney Dream at Port Everglades and was promptly greeted by United States Customs and Border Protection, according to a criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Conducting a border search on his room, officials confiscated two of his phones to examine. Numerous sexually explicit photos and videos of children of varying ages were found.

Neri, a 44-year-old Filipino man, told officers he was in several group chats where he downloaded and bought files containing adult pornography, the complaint read.

Asked specifically about the child sex abuse material, he said he obtains folders and saves them to his phone without looking at their contents, before later deleting them.

The videos included several children aged from approximately 9 to 16 years old, according to the complaint.

In response to an email from the Miami Herald seeking information on the individual and the company’s hiring and training practices, Disney Cruise Line said: “In accordance with our zero-tolerance policy for this kind of alleged behavior, this individual is no longer with the company.”

The cruise line did not respond when asked if the company does any background screening before hiring employees or crew members, whether there’s training for individuals once they’re hired, or if there is anything else the cruise line does for its staff to prevent such behavior from happening.

Two other men were arrested earlier this year for similar charges, one of whom had their case dropped.

Amiel Joseph Trazo, whose case is still being tried, was also a crew member on the Disney Dream when a January border check was conducted and the alleged materials were discovered.

A criminal complaint read officers found two videos of child sexual abuse on his phones after they received nine tips about him from the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children.

Neri was charged with transportation of child pornography and possession of child pornography, records show. As of Tuesday, he remained in the Broward Jail.

This story was originally published April 16, 2024 at 10:32 PM.

Devoun Cetoute
Miami Herald
Miami Herald Cops and Breaking News Reporter Devoun Cetoute covers a plethora of Florida topics, from breaking news to crime patterns. He was on the breaking news team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2022. He’s a graduate of the University of Florida, born and raised in Miami-Dade. Theme parks, movies and cars are on his mind in and out of the office.
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Vinod Sreeharsha
Miami Herald
Vinod Sreeharsha covers tourism trends in South Florida for the Miami Herald.
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