Former Wonder Cast Member Charged with Embezzelment

mmouse37

DCL Diva!!
Joined
Jun 29, 2001
Wow....just wow

http://www.wdwinfo.com/news-stories...entenced-to-15-months-for-fraud-embezzlement/

Back in October of 2017, Disney Cruise Line Cast Member Renan Dias da Rocha Gomes was arrested for embezzling more than $275,000 from the Walt Disney Company.

Yesterday, Gomes was sentenced in federal court to 15 months in prison for wire fraud in connection with the embezzlement scheme.

In his plea agreement, “Gomes admitted he embezzled funds from Disney while working in the merchandise stores aboard the ship from at least October 2015 to the day he was arrested.” He also admitted that he spent about $37,700 of the stolen funds for his own benefit by taking his family on a Walt Disney World vacation from April 23 through May 7 of 2017. During that vacation, Gomes reportedly used gift cards loaded with embezzled funds to spend approximately $8,200 on lodging and $29,500 on food, beverage, merchandise, and entertainment.

Gomes was able to fraudulently get ahold of the money by using his access to the online payment system. According to the U.S. Attorney’s office, he was able to make approximately $260,000 in unauthorized charges to Disney’s bank account and loaded their value onto Disney gift cards.

When federal agents searched Gomes’ cabin aboard the Disney Wonder, they found roughly 217 gift cards, a stolen watch, and $1,240 in cash.

The court ordered Gomes to pay all the money he stole back to The Walt Disney Company as part of his sentence. Gomes was also made to forfeit the stolen watch and $1,240 in cash.

U.S. Attorney Adam Braverman had this to say in a news release:

“Today’s sentence should remind the public that the U.S. Attorney’s Office is committed to protecting consumers and enforcing the law against employees who embezzle funds from their employers for their own personal benefit. The defendant in this case has been held accountable for his criminal conduct and for the way he cheated his employer.”

MJ
 




Man, I don't even know how to spend nearly $30K in two weeks, even in Disney World -- and that's not even counting the lodging. Anyway, length of sentence...eh. If he has to pay all that money back, that's the long sentence he'll be living with for quite a while.

Never trust someone with that many names :-)

:confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused:

What do you mean by that?
 
If I understand this correctly, he loaded most of the embezzled money onto Disney gift cards, so he had no choice but to use them at some Disney location. I wonder if he was buying up Disney merchandise and then selling it on eBay or someplace similar. It could have been a way to turn the stolen funds into actual cash money vs just Disney gift cards. It's just a wild guess, but even at Mickey prices, spending almost $30K in two weeks at WDW on food and beverages is a bit of a stretch. I guessing he spent a lot of time and money in the gift shops.
 
Man, I don't even know how to spend nearly $30K in two weeks, even in Disney World -- and that's not even counting the lodging. Anyway, length of sentence...eh. If he has to pay all that money back, that's the long sentence he'll be living with for quite a while.



:confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused::confused:

What do you mean by that?
It was a joke. "Lighten up Francis" (also a joke)
 
I don’t know. Disney is damn expensive. If he had 10 family members, just random guess, and took them to places like V & A’s, plus tours and shows. Private tours are $600 per hour, Ultimate tours $300per person. Adds up.

Yeah, but $30,000 above the lodging cost? That’s an average of $2,150 every single day for two weeks straight. Wow.

Assuming his family didn’t know what was going on, I wonder what story he gave them to explain these gigantic expenditures.....
 
Someone bought all the popcorn buckets and souvenir cups with every drink...
 
Yeah, but $30,000 above the lodging cost? That’s an average of $2,150 every single day for two weeks straight. Wow.

Assuming his family didn’t know what was going on, I wonder what story he gave them to explain these gigantic expenditures.....
Explaining to family would be tricky unless he said he won the lottery...or family assumed he had a great discount. Lol

One dinner for 10at V&A’s would be over $2200. 10 day hoppers for 10 people is over $5k. Maybe he bought APs for everyone at 1k each. I’m not saying it would be normal spending but going all out with a big family would be doable. Now if it’s just him and his wife and one kid, that would be more difficult.
 
The article stated it was food, drinks and merchandise. Not too difficult to spend $30,000 if you include merchandise. They have some very expensive stuff in some of those stores.
15 months seems about right to me. They need to let him out so he can start repaying them. It's going to take awhile.
 
The article stated it was food, drinks and merchandise. Not too difficult to spend $30,000 if you include merchandise. They have some very expensive stuff in some of those stores.
15 months seems about right to me. They need to let him out so he can start repaying them. It's going to take awhile.

That’s a good point about the high-end merchandise that’s available. Maybe they bought that Swarovski crystal castle in Arribas Bros.

What about Disney Springs - could they have used the gift cards on, like, the Coach store or one of the watch/jewelry stores? I have never tried using a Disney gift card at DS.

I suppose if the cards could be used in shops like that, $30k might not be that much of a stretch after all.
 
Explaining to family would be tricky unless he said he won the lottery...or family assumed he had a great discount. Lol

Seriously, I am racking my brain trying to figure out how they could *not* have known something was up - at least the adults.

Maybe he told them he won an all-expenses-paid WDW trip in some kind of CM raffle. But even then, wouldn’t receiving your prize in the form of +200 gift cards raise some red flags?
 
I think Pens Fan's guess that he was buying merchandise to resell seems very plausible, though you'd think it would've been in the news story if he'd put up umpteen million eBay listings right after the trip. I wouldn't think that'd be hard to figure out if they searched his home.

Don't know about using Disney gift cards at other shops in Disney Springs -- my understanding is that they're independent retailers, so I wouldn't expect to be able to spend them outside the Disney-run stores there (World of Disney, whatever the Christmas shop is called...hey, Art of Disney!). I bet you could spend a lot of money very quickly at Art of Disney. But yeah, it does beg the question of how no one else in the party noticed that he was buying that much stuff. Maybe he told them he got some kind of deep discount/prize for the lodging and then snuck off to make merch purchases? I don't even know, man.
 

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