You have to wonder about the culpability of the people who actually bought the tours though. It's no secret sharks are dangerous with chum in the water, I'd expect anyone considering actually DOING it to know that even better than I do. So yeah, it's his fault, but it's not like he took someone who had no idea of the risk.

Indeed that is true...however...I am not a field expert on shark behavior. If I with a lot of money wanted to see sharks like that, I would hire such an expert. If then said expert told me that it was OK to go into the water, one could/should expect relative safety based on the expert's opinion.

However when the expert in question was warned by other experts and continued regardless to allow customers to enter the environment, that I believe is criminal.

I think your mistake would be thinking a guy who operates a charter boat is "an expert". I've chartered dive boats before and while the guys who run them are great they aren't scientists, they're just guys with boats who like to dive and know all the good spots.

That may be knowledge that you have, but I am sure that the owner did not describe his business like that to paying customers.

It always pays to do your homework.

That's what I was thinking. If I'm going to do something potentially quite dangerous, I want to make sure I'm going about it in the safest manner possible!

True. That's one of many reasons he'll probably go to prison. (I wasn't really disagreeing with your original post)