MALPASSE, Haiti - Three beefy men wearing wraparound sunglasses and gold chains leaned against their SUV at this remote border crossing with the Dominican Republic. As one of them muttered into a walkie-talkie, four Haitian policemen pulled up looking like they meant business. The SUV's back hatch was opened. The cops eyeballed its load of opaque plastic-wrapped bundles. One officer picked up a package the size of a bread loaf, appraising its weight with his forearm. Then the police and the bejeweled trio knocked fists in solidarity, traded vehicles and drove off toward the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince. And thus ended the drug bust that wasn't. [continues 745 words]
Drug-Running Has Soared in the Country, Made Vulnerable by Poverty, Isolation and Police Corruption. MALPASSE, HAITI -- Three beefy men wearing wraparound sunglasses and gold chains leaned against their SUV at this remote border crossing with the Dominican Republic. As one of them muttered into a walkie-talkie, four Haitian policemen pulled up looking like they meant business. The SUV's back hatch was opened. The cops eyeballed its load of opaque-plastic-wrapped bundles. One officer picked up a package the size of a bread loaf, appraising its weight with his forearm. [continues 1473 words]
Haiti -- The United States on Wednesday defended its anti-drug efforts in Haiti, two days after the nation's president accused America and other major drug-consuming countries of failing to adequately fight the narcotics trade. In a strongly worded speech to Parliament on Monday, President Rene Preval called drug trafficking the main cause of instability in his impoverished nation and said failed efforts by the United States and other countries to stop the trade had made Haiti a victim. U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Shaila B. Manyam said Wednesday that the United States has undertaken measures to defend Haiti against drug trafficking, including strengthening its weak justice system and training its coast guard. [continues 183 words]
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- At least three candidates in Haiti's elections scheduled for Jan. 8 have links to a cocaine-trafficking industry that wants to ensure the next government is weak and corruptible, a half-dozen Haitian and U.S. officials say. Two of Haiti's best-financed presidential candidates -- Guy Philippe and Dany Toussaint -- have long been linked to cocaine trafficking by U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officials. A Senate candidate who is a nephew of interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue has close links to a gang that controls drug smuggling in the port of Gonaives, according to the Haitian and U.S. officials. [continues 463 words]
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - At least three candidates in Haiti's upcoming elections have links to a cocaine-trafficking industry that wants to ensure the next government is weak and corruptible, a half-dozen Haitian and U.S. officials say. Two of Haiti's best-financed presidential candidates -- Guy Philippe and Dany Toussaint -- have long been linked to cocaine trafficking by U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officials. And a Senate candidate who's a nephew of interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue has close links to a gang that controls drug smuggling in the port of Gonaives, according to the Haitian and U.S. officials. [continues 447 words]
Some Candidates For President Of Haiti Have Ties To Drug Traffickers, According To Haitian And U.S. Officials PORT-AU-PRINCE - At least three candidates in Haiti's upcoming elections have links to a cocaine-trafficking industry that wants to ensure the next government is weak and corruptible, a half-dozen Haitian and U.S. officials say. Two of Haiti's best-financed presidential candidates -- Guy Philippe and Dany Toussaint -- have long been linked to cocaine trafficking by U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officials. [continues 911 words]
MIAMI - A top Haitian police official in the government of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is facing trial on charges that he accepted thousands of dollars in bribes to help Colombian drug lords move huge loads of cocaine through the impoverished Caribbean country. Jury selection is scheduled to begin later this week in the case against Evintz Brillant, the only one of four former senior Haitian police officials who has not pleaded guilty in the investigation of drug trafficking inside the Aristide government. [continues 527 words]
MIAMI - One of Haiti's former antidrug chiefs was indicted Friday on a drug conspiracy charge as other former police and traffickers cooperating with U.S. investigators explained how Haitian officials allegedly took payoffs to protect Colombian cocaine heading to Miami. Evintz Brillant was added to an indictment that named former Haitian national police Cmdr. Rudy Therassan on a conspiracy charge carrying a possible life sentence. Arraignment is set for Monday. Therassan's attorney has identified Oriel Jean, ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's jailed chief of presidential palace security, as an informant in the wide-ranging investigation. Imprisoned Haitian drug kingpin Beaudoin ``Jacques'' Ketant, who has denounced Aristide as a drug lord, also is helping U.S. investigators. Therassan has admitted killing Ketant's drug-trafficking brother but says it was in self-defense. [end]
Days before President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forced out of Haiti, a notorious cocaine trafficker stood before a federal judge in Miami and said Aristide, once his friend, had turned Haiti into "a narco- country." "The man is a drug lord," Beaudouin "Jacques" Ketant told U.S. District Judge Federico A. Moreno on Feb. 25. "He controlled the drug trade in Haiti." His country in rebellion, Aristide left four days later aboard a plane provided by the U.S. government. In recent weeks, it has become clear that federal law enforcement officials in South Florida are putting a lot of stock in what Ketant has to say. The high-living cocaine trafficker has emerged as a central figure in an investigation that has snagged five former Haitian officials and appears to have Aristide in its sights. [continues 1109 words]
CHEVALIER, Haiti - The riches that arrived in this tiny village came from the sea - not in fisherman's nets but in an abandoned speedboat that washed up last year stocked with dozens of cellophane-wrapped bricks of Colombian cocaine. "Everyone else was grabbing it, so I took some," said Vital, a young fisherman. I gave it to my father, and the men came from Port-au-Prince to buy it for a lot of money." The cargo taught this southern coastal village what Haitian police and government officials have known for years: The drug trade is one of the few ways in Haiti to amass a fortune. [continues 277 words]
A former commander of the Haitian National Police Brigade was arrested in Miami and accused of conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the United States, the latest ex-official caught in a U.S. investigation of drug trafficking under ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Rudy Therassan was arrested Friday after being pulled over by the Florida Highway Patrol, said Carlos Castillo, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami. Therassan headed the Haitian national police from 2001 until last August, according to a criminal complaint. [continues 203 words]
The one-time commander of the Haitian National Police Brigade was arrested Friday in Miami on a drug charge, the latest government official caught in a federal investigation of cocaine and corruption under former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Papers filed in federal court in Miami identified the official as Rudy Therassan, who headed the Haitian national police from 2001 until last August. The U.S. Attorney's Office confirmed the arrest, saying Therassan was taken into custody on a warrant after the Florida Highway Patrol pulled him over on the Palmetto Expressway. [continues 535 words]
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, July 20 - Intoxicated by the promise of easy money, thousands of Haitians here and abroad sold their cars, mortgaged their homes and emptied their savings accounts in recent months to invest in cooperatives that promised astonishing monthly returns of 10 percent. Economists and bankers long warned government officials and the public that the unregulated cooperatives were little more than a pyramid scheme and possible money-laundering operation. But when President Jean-Bertrand Aristide hailed cooperatives as "the people's capitalism" that would drive economic development, many investors said their skepticism vanished. [continues 1035 words]
Grand-Goave, Haiti - It was just over a year ago that a peasant mob in this poor coastal town ripped off a four-ton shipment of Colombian cocaine, a haul worth $20 million even at local prices. Fishermen became instant millionaires. Farmers frequented nightclubs. And the sudden largess spawned a host of new social ills. But the populist drug seizure here in a nation that had become a major trans-shipment hub for Colombian cocaine headed to the United States also pointed to the latest, and perhaps strangest, trend in Caribbean drug smuggling. [continues 726 words]
Crime: Crumbling Roads And Populist Cocaine Grabs Erode The Nation's Role As A Transport Hub. GRAND-GOAVE, Haiti--It was just over a year ago that a peasant mob in this poor coastal town ripped off a 4-ton shipment of Colombian cocaine--a haul worth $20 million even at local prices. Fishermen became instant millionaires. Farmers showered in celebratory beers at local nightclubs. And the sudden largess spawned a host of new social ills. But the populist drug seizure here in a nation that had become a major transshipment hub for Colombian cocaine headed to the U.S. also pointed to the latest--and perhaps strangest--trend in Caribbean drug smuggling. [continues 929 words]
The international community froze all loans to Haiti in 1997 because of the countrys political turmoil. This May President Mejia of the neighbouring Dominican Republic appealed for aid to be resumed since its discontinuation is affecting not only Haiti but the whole region. As the political vacuum grows, the mafia is expanding to fill it: the traffic in drugs has increased more than threefold in the space of four years, adding to Haitis already disastrous image. Gallimards new, lavishly illustrated guide to Haiti (1) paints an enticing picture of the pearl of the Caribbean, as it was called in the 17th century. But when you arrive theres not a tourist to be seen: just a few transient expats. The island has never been in such bad shape socially and economically, never had a worse political image in the outside world: widespread poverty, neglect, desertion, dilapidation, shipwreck, collapse, calvary, chaos, apocalypse. The press runs the gamut of metaphors, biblical and non-biblical. After 15 years of transition to democracy and international dithering, some people are even beginning to look back with nostalgia to the good old days of Jean- Claude Duvalier and his puppet government. [continues 1937 words]
Ships, Planes To Go Along Coast, In Air In a decision quickly welcomed by U.S. officials, Haiti has agreed to allow U.S. ships and planes to enter its unguarded coastline and airspace to intercept Colombian vessels preparing to unload cocaine destined for South Florida. The move is supported by president-elect Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who pledged to put into effect an agreement that was signed by the United States and Haiti three years ago but not ratified by Haiti's parliament until last month. [continues 699 words]
In a decision quickly welcomed by U.S. officials, Haiti has agreed to allow U.S. ships and planes to enter its unguarded coastline and airspace to intercept Colombian vessels preparing to unload cocaine destined for South Florida. The move is supported by president-elect Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who pledged to put into effect an agreement that was signed by the United States and Haiti three years ago but not ratified by Haiti's parliament until last month. [continues 695 words]
Society Blames Cocaine Trade For Its Downfall PORT-AU-PRINCE -- Bernard Louisdhon sits on a dirty mattress that takes up half the airless room. He rubs his eyes and looks at the light that filters through the open door. Louisdhon is waking up from the morning's crack binge. He's a thief who feeds a growing appetite for the drug with stolen goods. Recently, he fell from a third-story balcony with a stolen laptop in his hands, and casually shows the bruises on his side. For the theft, he spent a month locked up. [continues 1073 words]
Influx Brings Cash, Crime, Corruption LEOGANE, Haiti -- For Del Lydes, the drug planes that circle over the cornfields have become as common as the flies that buzz around his cows. They swoop down past the trees and roll to a stop along the two-lane road that slices through the fields. Then men with machine guns stash their cargo -- cocaine -- into cars. "Around here it is a cocaine area," Lydes said. "A lot of people have moved. But others come at night to wait for the planes." [continues 1344 words]
Operation Restore Democracy, a 1994 invasion of Haiti by 20,000 American troops, had another key objective - to stop the flow of U.S.-bound cocaine through what was then becoming a premier Caribbean drug hub. Six years later, drug shipments through Haiti have soared to unprecedented levels, the latest in a series of setbacks to buffet the desperately poor nation that has seen U.S. troops depart and its fledgling democracy wither with a series of fraud-tainted elections. "Haiti is a narco-state, no different than Panama was under [Manuel] Noriega, when the state powers, the banks and the police were either acquiescing or actively participating in narco-trafficking," said one U.S. official, who asked not to be named. [continues 610 words]
LEOGANE, Haiti -- For Del Lydes, the drug planes that circle over the cornfields have become as common as the flies that buzz around his cows. They swoop down past the trees and roll to a stop along the two-lane road that slices through the fields. Then men with machine guns stash their cargo -- cocaine -- into cars. "Around here it is a cocaine area," Mr. Lydes said. "A lot of people have moved. But others come at night to wait for the planes." [continues 1350 words]
Signs of drug money are starting to pop up in a desperately poor country. Mysterious planes land on deserted highways in the dead of night. Gleaming gas stations sprout in a country where one in 70 people owns a car. Majestic mansions rise, turrets looming eerily over sad slums. Signs of drug money are growing in Haiti, one of the world's poorest nations - -- supporting contentions by U.S. officials that the Caribbean island has become a major conduit for smuggling narcotics into the United States. Increasingly, ill-gotten profits are staying in the cash-starved nation, fueling accusations that local authorities are tainted and toughening the challenge for U.S. anti-drug enforcers trying to slow the drug flow. [continues 816 words]
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- Mysterious planes land on deserted highways in the dead of night. Gleaming gas stations sprout in a country where one in 70 people owns a car. Majestic mansions rise, turrets looming eerily over sad slums. Signs of drug money are growing in Haiti, one of the world's poorest nations - -- supporting contentions by U.S. officials that the Caribbean island has become a major conduit for smuggling narcotics into the United States. Increasingly, ill-gotten profits are staying in the cash-starved nation, fueling accusations that local authorities are tainted and toughening the challenge for U.S. anti-drug enforcers trying to slow the drug flow. [continues 900 words]
Troubled Island Used As Transit Site For South American Drugs The cries of concern are becoming louder and more frequent over Haiti's growing role as a transshipment point for Colombian cocaine entering the United States, but U.S. officials acknowledge the solution is as elusive as ever. The increased focus on Haiti as a drug transit outpost comes at a time of increasing political turmoil and economic despair as the Caribbean country heads toward long-awaited parliamentary and presidential elections. [continues 691 words]
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Increasingly lawless, corrupt and poor, Haiti has become pivotal to a multibillion-dollar business in cocaine, according to sources here and law enforcement officials in the United States. They say a Haitian pipeline is flooding the U.S. with the drug, even as the narcotic further corrodes this island nation's society, its economy and its few government institutions. Through sophisticated and wealthy local smuggling organizations that are quickly becoming a cartel unto themselves, the U.S. government estimates, more than 135 tons of Colombian cocaine have transited Haiti en route to the U.S. in the last two years. [continues 1505 words]
MIAMI -- Smugglers have been moving increasingly large amounts of cocaine into Florida by way of Haiti, employing hiding places so ingenious that federal agents have had to drill into the keels of freighters to find the drugs. This month alone, agents seized more than a ton of cocaine stashed inside false compartments aboard several freighters from Haiti. They found an additional 160 pounds of the drug hidden inside barrels of butter aboard a commercial flight that arrived in Miami. "This particular incident of uncovering cocaine in the keel will force the organizations to come up with a new way to bring it in," said Frank Figueroa, lead investigator at the Customs Service office in Miami. [continues 342 words]
U.S.-Trained Force Linked To Killings, Drug Offenses PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Created four years ago to usher in a new era of impartial justice, the U.S.-trained Haitian National Police force is grappling with allegations that its officers have been involved in a wave of murders, disappearances of detainees, drug-related crimes and other illegal activities. After 20,000 troops, mostly Americans, dismantled a military dictatorship in 1994 and reinstated Haiti's first democratically elected president, the new police department was to be the cornerstone of justice reform. And even its harshest critics have welcomed the new force as an alternative to the repressive security forces that traumatized Haiti during the military government and the earlier dictatorships of Francois Duvalier and his son and successor, Jean-Claude. [continues 1066 words]
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Gunmen fired through the windows of a Haitian radio station just one week after the radio broke a story implicating four high-level police officers in drug trafficking, a radio official told Reuters Saturday. Vision 2000, a private radio station, was the first media to report on the detention of four police commissioners last week, one of whom headed security at the presidential palace, for alleged involvement in drug trafficking. The four officers were found at a hotel in the northern city of Cap-Haitien where local police captured three Colombian drug traffickers and seized an unspecified quantity of cocaine. [continues 196 words]
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - U.S. officials estimate cocaine trafficking through Haiti increased by 17 percent last year, with virtually all of the shipments heading for the United States and Europe. The reasons are clear: geography, poverty, government paralysis, a disbanded parliament, a dysfunctional criminal-justice system, a largely unprotected coastline and an understaffed and inexperienced police force with limited resources. U.S. officials estimate 54 metric tons of cocaine went through Haiti in 1998, a 17 percent increase over 1997. The estimates are based on the amount of cocaine that is seized, which provides a basis for determining the volume of overall traffic, and on various intelligence sources [continues 490 words]
PORT-AU-PRINCE, March 10 (Reuters) - Haiti's prime minister said on Wednesday the country has worked hard to fight narcotrafficking and should not have been rejected for U.S. certification as a partner in the anti-drug effort. "The DEA (U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration) is here and there are American boats that penetrate our waters as part of this programme to fight narcotrafficking," Jacques Edouard Alexis told Reuters. "Haitian agents are doing their work. This non-certification, it doesn't just penalise Haiti, it penalises the DEA, in my opinion. We are working together, so there is a problem." [continues 330 words]
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Sensing a singular opportunity in a country weakened by a paralyzed government and an inexperienced police force, Colombian and Dominican drug traffickers have made Haiti the fastest-growing transit point for cocaine on its way to the United States, American and Haitian law enforcement officials say. Barry McCaffrey, the retired general who is President Clinton's drug policy director, visited in early October and described the situation as "clearly an emergency," warning that Haiti had become the "principal focus" of groups trafficking drugs in the Caribbean. [continues 596 words]
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti---Sensing a singular opportunity in a country weakened by a paralyzed government and an inexperienced police force, Colombian and Dominican drug traffickers have made Haiti the fastest-growing transit point for cocaine on its way to the United States, American and Haitian law enforcement officials say. Barry McCaffrey, the retired general who is President Bill Clinton's drug policy director, visited in early October and described the situation as "clearly an emergency," warning that Haiti had become "the principal focus" of groups trafficking drugs in the Caribbean. [continues 565 words]
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Sensing a singular opportunity in a country weakened by a paralyzed government and an inexperienced police force, Colombian and Dominican drug traffickers have made Haiti the fastest-growing transit point for cocaine on its way to the United States, American and Haitian law enforcement officials say. Barry McCaffrey, the retired general who is President Clinton's drug policy director, visited in early October and described the situation as "clearly an emergency," warning that Haiti had become "the principal focus" of groups trafficking drugs in the Caribbean. In an interview here, Pierre Denize, chief of the Haitian National Police, offered an almost identical assessment. [continues 1072 words]
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Sensing a singular opportunity in a country weakened by a paralyzed government and an inexperienced police force, Colombian and Dominican drug traffickers have made Haiti the fastest-growing transit point for cocaine on its way to the United States, American and Haitian law enforcement officials say. Barry McCaffrey, the retired general who is President Clinton's drug policy director, visited in early October and described the situation as "clearly an emergency," warning that Haiti had become "the principal focus" of groups trafficking drugs in the Caribbean. In an interview here, Pierre Denize, chief of the Haitian National Police, offered an almost identical assessment. [continues 527 words]
Corruption Is Widespread; Drug-Related Corruption Epidemic PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti—Last March, authorities arrested a Colombian man as he arrived at the international airport here lugging several suitcases stuffed with 1,650 pounds of cocaine destined for the United States. Two weeks later, under mysterious circumstances, the suspect was allowed to leave Haiti unpunished, according to Haitian and U.S. law enforcement sources. In the words of one U.S. investigator, "No one knows what . . . happened to him or the drugs." [continues 1198 words]
By Nicole Volpe, Reuters, 11/28/97 PORTAUPRINCE, Haiti As United Nations peacekeepers prepare to depart Haiti after a threeyear mission, they leave behind a nation struggling with economic malaise, a political crisis, police corruption, drug trafficking, and plots to overthrow the government. The UN peacekeeping mandate ends Sunday, and the 1,000 Canadian and Pakistani troops who have been patrolling the streets of PortAuPrince will begin shipping out Thursday, leaving security in the hands of the twoyearold national police force. [continues 486 words]
By Nicole Volpe FLAMAND, Haiti (Reuters) A village of peasants allegedly led by their pastor were suspected in the heist of two tons of Colombian cocaine that frustrated police said Sunday they were so far unable to recover. "Everyone in the village is implicated," said the chief of an elite police intervention force called in to find the drugs. "We understand there was as much as two tons of cocaine on board and everyone took some." Among those arrested was the local pastor Joseph Henri, who police alleged was a ringleader in the theft. [continues 540 words]
Honduras' Supreme Court of Justice rejected a U.S. request for the extradition of Col. Joseph Michel Francois, chief of police in the Haitian capital PortauPrince during the 199194 military regime. ``The court has decided by majority vote to reject the U.S. petition for the extradition of Joseph Michel Francois,'' Judge Marco Alvarado told reporters. He said Francois, who has been in Tegucigalpa's central penitentiary since March 7, would be set free on Wednesday. ``This judgement is definitive, there will be no other recourse and the accused can go free shortly,'' he added. ``The United States did not present solid enough proof to back its accusations.'' [continues 179 words]
Special forces soldiers are taking part in the operations, according to a senior Western diplomat and a military source familiar with drug interdiction efforts. Such activity goes beyond the official mission of U.S. military personnel in Haiti, which military public affairs officers say is solely to carry out infrastructure and humanitarian projects and training exercises. ``It's clear the U.S. military is involved in going after drug trafficking,'' said a senior Western diplomat. He said he had spoken with U.S. special forces soldiers who told him they were on an antidrug mission in the southern city of Jacmel. [continues 619 words]
Exiled Haitian police chief indicted in drug case He allegedly helped smuggle 33 tons of heroin, cocaine By Mike Clary Los Angeles Times Miami PortauPrince's exiled police chief, a shadowy, ruthless figure believed to have engineered the 1991 coup which ousted President JeanBertrand Aristide and pitched Haiti into three years of bloody turmiol, has been charged with helping to smuggle more than 33 tons of Colombian cocaine and heroin into the United States. According to an indictment unsealed here yesterday in U.S. District Court, Lt. Col. Joseph Michel Francois met facetoface with the leaders of three Colombian cartels to arrange for drug shipments to pass through Haiti via a private airstrip he helped build and protect. The 50page indictment naming 13 people was unsealed after Francois, 39, was arrested in Honduras, where he has been living under a grant of political asylum since last April. He is expected to be flown to Miami today to face formal arraignment. "It's been a major, major case," said Wilfredo Fernandez, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office. The indictment charges Francois took part in a "conspiracy to establish a cocaine and heroin distribution network through Haiti, employing in large part the political and military institutions of that county." All but three of those named in the indictment have been arrested. One of those in custody is a security worker at Miami International Airport who is accused of escorting drug couriers off flights from Haiti. Fernandez said Francois long has been the target of an investigation into drug trafficking involving former Haitian police and military leaders. He added that the Honduran government has been "extremely helpful and cooperative in arranging for the extradition." Francois fled to Honduras after he and Franck Romain, the former mayor of PortauPrince, were arrested in the Dominiacan Republic and charged with conspiring against the government of President Rene Preval. The pair had been in the Dominican Republic since October 1994, two weeks after U.S.troops escorted Aristide back to the Haitian capital. Last September Francois was convicted in absentia in Haiti and sentenced to life at hard labor for the 1993 killing of a Haitian businessman who was a major financial backer of Aristide. But long before that, Francois was wellknown to both Haitains on the street and U.S. officials in Washington as a behindthescenes power broker given to secrecy and control through a national police force that many compared to a death squad. A 1993 U.S. General Accounting Office report alleged that Francois and army chief Raoul Cedras, then heading the government, protected the annual passage of 50 tons of Colombian cocaine through Haiti. The indictment alleges that he met personally with Medellin kingpin Pablo Escobar and others to discuss U.S.bound drug shipments. [end]
He was arrested in Honduras and was likely to arrive in Miami under escort Saturday, law enforcement sources said. Francois is believed to have been the mastermind behind the September 1991 coup that toppled Haitian President JeanBertrand Aristide. He fled to the Dominican Republic in 1994 after U.S. troops invaded the Caribbean nation to restore Aristide to power. He became the capital's police chief after the 1991 coup and developed a network of plainclothes policemen, or ``attaches'', who instigated a reign of terror against opponents of the military regime. [continues 372 words]
Inside Haiti
