On January 9th, 2024, Ronaldo Miguel Castellanos — a nine-year Meridian Horizon Cruise Line crew member serving as assistant casino cage manager and cross-trained minibar auditor aboard the MS Solstice Voyager — was arrested and charged with wire fraud, theft within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, and embezzlement by a ship's officer or crew member after a corporate security audit uncovered an 18-month scheme spanning two separate onboard billing systems. Investigators found Castellanos had shorted casino chip counts during overnight cage shifts while separately posting phantom minibar and spa charges to cabins he identified as unlikely to be scrutinized, routing a portion of those charges through a crew gratuity loophole, for a combined $309,000 skimmed from roughly 340 passenger folios. The scheme was uncovered after a passenger's own pre-cruise minibar photographs contradicted charges on his final bill, triggering a fleet-wide audit that found his chip discrepancies and voided-charge rate far exceeded any other crew member's. Castellanos was sentenced to 5 years in federal prison and permanently barred from working aboard any U.S.-flagged or U.S.-departing vessel. ––– Disclaimer: This video is a dramatization based on real events. Some visual content was created with artificial intelligence assistance. Some details have been fictionalized and all names have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved.