The Miami-Dade Police Department arrested a passenger who disembarked from an unidentified cruise ship at PortMiami last weekend on charges of “purchasing child sexual abuse material online.”
Miami-Dade Police arrested Nicholas Gardener, age 24, of Brampton, Ontario who was initially held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a $50,000 bond for five felony charges related to the possession of child sexual abuse materials.
According to Local News 10 in Miami, the arrest report indicates that a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer searched Gardner’s phone and found three illicit videos and two illicit images which depicted girls between the ages of 5 and 8 being victimized.
There have been a significant number of arrests for sexual crimes on cruise ships by state and federal law enforcement officers in South Florida. At least seventeen (17) crew members have been arrested in a seven month period in 2024 for possession of child pornography on cruise ships returning to ports primarily in Miami and Fort Lauderdale.
The cruise crime data required by the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act (CVSSA) from the third quarter of this year (from July 1 – September 30) shows that sexual assaults on cruise ships rose to 38 from 25 (from April 1 to June 30). Surprisingly, Disney Cruise Line led all cruise lines with 11 sexual assaults and rapes in just three months. It is unknown to the public how many of these sexual crimes involved minors. (The cruise industry lobbied heavily to avoid having to disclose whether children were victimized while the U.S. Congress was enacting the CVSSA).
The CVSSA does not disclose when a crew member or cruise guest is arrested on charges of child pornography. The public is dependant on reports of the local news organization reporting these types of crimes.
Taking a cruise with your family exposes them to a significant risk of a sexual crime. Unfortunately, enforcement often is unduly concerned with the reputation of the cruise industry and does not disclose the name of a particular cruise ship when a sexual crime takes place.
The local news report of this crime (Gardener reportedly confessed) did not identify the name of the cruise ship. Last Saturday, six ships operated by four cruise lines were at the port of Miami: Icon of the Seas, Independence of the Seas, Norwegian Joy, MSC Seascape, Carnival Magic, and Carnival Sunrise.
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Image credits: Photo of Carnival, NCL and Royal Caribbean ships – Financial Times; Nicholas Gardener mug shot – Miami Dade Police via Local News 10.