Missing Cruise Ship Passenger Had Troubled Relationship With Boyfriend, Family Members Say

MIAMI March 8, 2012 — -- The mystery of 47-year-old Fariba Amani's disappearance is deepening and her family is now pointing an accusatory finger at her boyfriend, saying he knows more than he is telling investigators.

The Canadian woman vanished from the Bahamas Celebration somewhere on the high seas between Bahamas and Florida on Feb. 29.

The disappearance triggered an 84-hour, 10,000 square mile Coast Guard search for Amani after her boyfriend Ramiz Golshani, 46, reported her missing to Celebration cruise crew members shortly after it returned to port.

Police and the FBI boarded the ship and launched investigation. Yet not a single trace of the mother of two was found.

Now Amani's family hints her boyfriend, Golshani, whom they never met during his eight month relationship with Amani, likely knows more than he is letting on.

"I don't think this was accidental. She didn't drink, she couldn't have just stumbled and fallen off board,"said Saloumeh Amani, Fariba's sister.

Particularly disturbing, say the family, is Golshani's silence.

"He has not reached out to us. He has not contacted us," Saloumeh said.

All of them live near Vancouver, British Columbia. She'd been suspicious of Gholshani ever since her sister told her the relationship was souring, and that she suspected Golshani was cheating on her.

Fariba Amani went as far as consulting a private detective, but later decided not to employ him because she feared Golshani's reaction.

"She said her boyfriend was extremely controlling and needed to know every move, every minute of the day where she was," said private investigator Tom Dolo.

Her sister Saloumeh said the relationship had been fraying.

"She was afraid he would be mad at her," Saloumeh said.

Golshani told The Vancouver Sun Tuesday night that he has told investigators everything he knows, but has remained quiet – not even speaking to Amani's family – since returning to British Columbia because of what an emotional time it has been.

"You don't know what happened to me over the last week," he said, his voice breaking up. "I haven't even slept for 10 hours in one week. Last week, at this time, we were sitting and watching a comedy show on the ship. Two hours after this, she was missing. I am missing a loved one. Both families love her. We want her safe back home right now."

Golshani is not a suspect, and police and the FBI would not comment other than to say the investigation is ongoing.

When confronted at her door by media, Golshani's sister insisted, "He doesn't know anything. He has gone through interviews with the FBI in the states and they told him that he's free, he can go and he doesn't know what happened."

But Saloumeh Amani also said her sister intended the cruise to be a final litmus test for the relationship.

"She would go on the cruise and see because maybe the relationship would get better afterwards, but if it wouldn't then she would break up with him," Saloumeh Amani said.

Golshani told investigators that they'd been together after the Celebration Bahamas left port in Freeport, Bahamas, bound for the Port of Palm Beach.

He'd last seen Fariba Amani at the ship's gift shop before heading to the casino around 1 a.m. and later he went to sleep alone.

When the ship reached the Port of Palm Beach around 7 a.m. Golshani said he awoke and began searching the ship for her.

At around 8 a.m. he alerted the crew. Two searches ensued as passengers began to disembark the 1,100 passenger ship, but they did not find her.

Customs officials confirm she was on the ship when it left Freeport, Grand Bahama, around 8 p.m. because every passenger must swipe a card to get on or off the ship.

But her whereabouts over the next 12 hours as the ship plowed through international waters remain a mystery.