A 34-year-old Royal Caribbean cruise ship employee is facing multiple state and federal felony charges for allegedly hiding cameras in the bathrooms of multiple passengers, many of whom were underage girls, and surreptitiously taping them in various states of undress.
Arvin J. Mirasol, citizen of the Philippines, was arrested Sunday after a guest aboard the Symphony of the Seas cruise ship found a camera in her bathroom on Feb. 25. Mirasol allegedly said that he would hide under passengers’ beds to film them naked.
He was taken into custody over the weekend in Florida and charged by the state with six counts of video voyeurism and by the federal government with one count each of producing child pornography and possessing child pornography, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
According to an arrest report from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, Mirasol was a stateroom attendant on the Symphony of the Seas ship, which left from Port Everglades, Florida, on Feb. 24 and returned on March 3.
Also onboard the ship for the cruise was the victim, a juvenile female, who was staying in a cabin with her mother and older sister.
The day after the ship left port, the victim said she was in her private bathroom “when she reached under the sink to get a roll of toilet paper” and “observed a hidden camera affixed to the counter underneath the sink.” The victim said she had used the bathroom multiple times since boarding the ship “while in a state of undress” and had not provided consent to anyone to record her in the bathroom.
The ship’s security was immediately notified and responded to the room. While security was interviewing the victim and her family, Mirasol entered the room and was detained and placed in a guarded confinement room on the ship until it returned to port several days later and he was arrested.
Mirasol, an attendant who services the cabin by cleaning, replacing towels and making the bed, was detained on the ship until it docked at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on March 3.
Once the ship docked, Homeland Security Investigations, Customs and Border Protection and the Broward County Sheriff’s Office were alerted and spoke with security and Mirasol.
His electronics, including his phone, an SD card, camera, and USB stick, were investigated that same day. On the USB stick, law enforcement discovered “numerous videos of naked females undressing” as well as child pornography, the criminal complaint affidavit said. One video showed Mirasol himself installing a camera into a guest room’s bathroom.
Mirasol admitted in a post-Miranda interview to taping a video camera in guests’ bathrooms when he worked as an attendant and said he’d pleasure himself after retrieving the camera and viewing its footage, the affidavit said.
“Mirasol revealed that he has been placing these cameras in the bathroom since he started working on Symphony of the Seas around December 2023,” the filing said.
He told officers, “I want to control it, but I can’t,” the affidavit said. He said he’d place the cameras in the rooms where there were females 16 years old and older, despite knowing it is illegal to film underage girls.
Mirasol also admitted that while guests were taking a shower, he’d enter the rooms and hide under the bed while recording them naked with his phone, the affidavit said.
Mirasol has been charged with six state charges of voyeurism in Broward County. In the U.S. District Court of Florida, he was further charged with production and possession of child pornography.
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