This is Hidden Killers with Tony Bruske.

Here now, Tony Bruske.

Between 2015 and 2025, the New York Times searched legal and news databases

looking for criminal prosecutions of assaults on cruise ships across an entire decade

in an industry that reports over a hundred of these to the FBI, every single year, they found

13 prosecutions, seven convictions, 13 and 7.

Those numbers should kind of make you furious.

And by the time I'm done explaining why they're so low, they will if you're paying attention.

Over the last three episodes, I have shown you the cases across Disney, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Princess, Carnival, Holland America.

Everybody's got problems.

I've walked you through how children are vulnerable on these ships in ways the industry does not disclose.

The pattern is undeniable, but there is something I've not fully explained yet.

And it might be the most important piece of this entire investigation, because the cases are horrifying, and the access is alarming.

But the thing that should make every parent furious is what happens after someone gets caught.

Or more accurately, what does not happen?

Not being the operative word.

To understand why justice is so rare at sea, you need to understand the jurisdictional maze that every cruise ship operates inside, okay?

Every major cruise line registers its ship under foreign flags.

Panama, the Bahamas, Bermuda, Malta.

This is not random.

This is a deliberate business strategy called flag of convenience registration.

By registering ships in these countries, cruise lines gain significant tax advantages and place their vessels under the regulatory framework of those flag states rather than the

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