A 55-year-old Hialeah woman has been charged with embezzling over $2.6 million from her employer, a Florida company that operates tax- and duty-free retail stores aboard cruise ships.
Carmen Silvia Rodriguez, of Hialeah, was charged with two counts of wire fraud in connection with the alleged scheme to steal the money from Starboard Cruise Services, Inc. (SCS).
According to the information, Rodriguez worked in SCS’s Finance and Administration Department from April 2010 through May 2016. During this time, she accessed company records related to two former SCS vendors and added her own bank account information to the two vendors’ accounts.
The information further alleges that Rodriguez created false internal invoices that inflated the price of certain products purchased by SCS, often by overstating the shipping and handling costs associated with SCS’s purchase of the products. Rodriguez also created false internal invoices that purportedly reflected the purchase of certain products by SCS.
By creating the false purchase orders and making them payable to SCS Vendor #1 and/or SCS Vendor #2, Rodriguez caused approximately $2,669,372.30 in electronic Automated Clearinghouse payments to be transmitted from SCS’s bank account to Rodriguez’s personal bank accounts.
Each count of wire fraud carries a maximum term of twenty years in prison. Rodriguez made her initial appearance in Federal court on August 16, 2017, before U.S. Magistrate Judge Edwin G. Torres.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Christopher Browne.
Key Facts
- State: Florida
- Category: White Collar Crime
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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