Living Together: The Gangs of Haiti - Part 1: The Death of a President

Foreign it was on 29 February 2024, when the Prime Minister of Haiti, Ariel Henry, was in Nairobi, Kenya to meet his counterpart, President William Ruto. They were meeting to discuss a proposed deal that would see Kenyan police sent thousands of miles across the world to Haiti in the Caribbean to help deal with the growing crisis in the country.

Since the assassination of his predecessor, President Jovenel Moise In 2021, gang violence had exploded, much of it directed at the state and the people of Haiti. Murders, destruction of property, massacres, rapes, kidnappings, blockades and extortion had spread as the gangs fought each other and the state, pushing state security forces out of neighborhood after neighborhood, exacerbating an already poor humanitarian situation into a full blown catastrophe.

At the same time as the meeting between the two leaders in Kenya. Back in Haiti, a man was standing in front of a building with crumbling white render and ornate wrought iron window grilles. He was speaking to a scrum of media. He was wearing a black long sleeve top, black head wrap, black tactical gloves and a black bulletproof vest with an automatic weapon draped casually across his chest.

Hanging low by his side, he spoke about the state of the country, the insecurity, and that people are hungry. Using pseudo political language, he talked about the need for people to live and fight for Haiti. The members of the police should fight with the people and not the state, and so on and so on. His name is Jimmy Cherizier, aka Barbecue. At the time, he was the leader of G9, one of the most powerful gang coalitions.

But in this message, he said that the warring gangs needed to put their differences aside and work together to take down the Prime Minister, Ariel Henry, and build a new Haiti. He announced a new coalition between G9 and another gang coalition, their arch rivals, GPEP, and it was to be called Vive Living Together, an attempt that had failed the year earlier. But this time, at least up until today, it's held together. Vince Hommes would change everything. The gunfire started shortly after.

Welcome to Deep Dive from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. I'm Jack Meaghan Vickers, and this is Living Together. The Gangs of Haiti, Part 1. The death of a president. The assassination of Haiti's president Jovenel Moise has drawn international condemnation. Barbecue sees himself as a revolutionary for the people and he rails against corrupt politicians and oligarchs.

Armed gangs demanding the Prime Minister's resignation have attacked two prisons, allowing thousands of inmates to escape. U.S. homeland Security Investigations also reported a. Surge in firearms trafficking from Florida to Haiti. He was killed while on patrol in Haiti, sent there by the Kenyan government to help keep the peace, word spread. Sharpen your machetes. And even in the churches, pastors called on their flocks to take action.

So back in the early hours of 7th July, 2021, the President of Haiti, Jovenel Moise, and his wife Martine, were at their private residence in the hills above Port au Prince. On the street outside, two vans and three pickup trucks are driving slowly down the road. Witnesses said that the people in the vehicles were speaking in English and spoke Spanish and wearing tactical vests with that familiar DEA logo emblazoned in yellow.

Grainy footage from local residents showed the heavily armed men shouting, dea operation. Everybody back up. Stand down. The vehicles pull up outside the president's residence. The armed men split up. Some watch for the guards, and 10 entered the property by smashing in the front door. According to a detailed account reported in El Pais, they encountered a maid, gagged her and locked her in a room before continuing to the president's bedroom where he and his wife slept.

Once there, they opened fire, killing president Moise and injuring his wife, Martine. Moise, speaking about the attack from a hospital bed in Miami, said that she only survived because the hitmen believed her to be dead. His daughter also survived by hiding. The squad of hitmen then ransacked the house looking for valuables before eventually withdrawing.

Now, here's where it starts to get a little bit more bizarre, because eight of the hitmen headed to the embassy of Taiwan, which was empty at the time. The rest went to a nearby house. And by nearby, I mean literally just a few minutes away.

The assassination of Haiti's president, Juvenel Moise, has drawn international condemnation. Haiti has declared a two week state of emergency following the deadly attack on the president, giving the executive branch stronger powers to deal with what appears to be a worsening situation in the country. President Moise was gunned down by unknown assailants at his home near the capital, Port au Prince. Overnight, Haiti has seen a rise in politically motivated violence in recent months.

As dawn broke, Haitian police began to mobilize, and by the end of the day, they tracked the assassins to a house in Ptionville, where a dramatic firefight ensued. For hours. Four of the assassins were killed and seven were captured. Those hiding in the Embassy of Taiwan were also arrested. Over the coming days, Haitian police killed a total of seven of the hitmen and caught 15. Police Chief Leon Charles claimed that the group consisted of a total of 26 Colombians and two Haitian Americans.

Those captured were paraded in front of the world's media. So why was president Moise killed by a bunch of mercenaries? Well, it's still not entirely known. He was certainly a controversial president, and his premiership had been rocked by protests. Presidential came in with, you know, charges hanging over his head, allegations of corruption. This is Jacqueline Charles, the Haiti and Caribbean correspondent at the Miami Herald.

And then an election where you didn't even have a million people, just a little bit over 500, I think 590,000 people who voted. But he carried out this mandate as if there were 12 million people who voted. And you had a political class whose attitude is, okay, we'll just let it go. We're just going to protest the entire time. So you basically handcuff the hands of the executive, and it's constant protest, protest. Protest Alongside accusations of corruption.

Despite his small mandate for the last year of Moiz's presidency, he ruled by decree and proposed sweeping changes to the constitution of the country, including an attempt to increase the power of the presidency at the expense of the parliament, something he intended to put to a referendum in June 2021. But instability led to the referendum being pushed back to September. President Moiz was assassinated before it could take place.

Haiti stumbled on for a couple of weeks with acting prime minister Claude Joseph, who some accuse of being involved in the plot against Moise, declared himself interim president. But complications arose when it was revealed that Ariel Henry had been selected as prime minister by president Moiz, but had yet to be sworn in. He requested Joseph stand aside and was sworn in as acting prime minister, promising to restore order and bring about new presidential elections.

He's the man that the late Haitian. President had picked to be the new prime minister just two days before Jovenel Maurice was killed. And now, over two weeks since that. Assassination, and after days of political uncertainty, Ariel Henry is officially the head of government of a Caribbean nation that's still in mourning.

Suspicion around the assassination remains to this day because this case is really murky, with accusations flying around between various protagonists, which is almost an entirely separate episode. But I'll put some links in the podcast notes for those who want to read more about that. Because it's not the assassination we're looking at in this episode, it's what happened afterwards when the news broke of the president's murder.

The guy we mentioned at the start, Jimmy Cherizier, AKA Barbecue, who was at this time running a coalition of gangs known as G9. Family and allies, we'll just be referring to them as G9.

From here, he came out strongly against the assassination, calling it a national and international conspiracy against the Haitian people, before demanding that his gang mobilize onto the streets to commit legitimate violence, including the targeting of business owners of Syrian and Lebanese descent, who he described as not Haitian, and holding Haiti's economy hostage.

He also accused outside influences like human rights activists, journalists and other business owners of pouring your cash into killing President Jovenel Moise, before adding that they're going to throw everything we've got into running you out of this land. I think what the assassination showed is first that no one is safe in Haiti. And it's an argument that the gang leaders in that sense have been using in the past.

This is Romain Le Cor Grandmaison, a senior expert at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. So I've been using since the assassination of Moise in a way of, you know, threatening a bit everybody in Haiti by saying if someone can come to our country and get to the President's bedroom at night and kill him in his bed next to his wife, you have to assume that we can do the same for any target we can have in the country.

The second thing is probably the, the darkest part, of course, of the assassination is what it means in terms of collusion, corruption and relationship between the security apparatus in the country and violent actors. So in that case of the assassination, it's, we're talking about foreign mercenaries. But we do know, and it's probably one of the most important parts of, of our work at the Global Initiative on Haiti.

We know that there are relationships between the political actors, the economic actors and violent groups, criminal groups and the gangs in Haiti. And in a way, the case of the assassination is kind of the paradigmatic case in which those relationships ended up with this incredibly high value target which is killing the President and taking the country down to its knees. Prior to this, gang violence was already significant.

Despite Barbecue's words, his G9 gang had committed a number of massacres, including one in Citi Soleil in 2021 in when they killed 145 people and raped multiple women and burnt homes. Indeed, according to one report by the Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic and the Haitian Observatory of Crimes Against Humanity, a number of the attacks between 2018 and 2020, such as the one in City Saleh, targeted political opponents of President Moise.

It does lead to the rather speculative question around Barbecue's reaction to the murder of President Moiz. Was his anger focused on the plight of the Haitian people, or was it because of the Death of a political patron. Regardless, the political vacuum that followed the assassination only made matters worse. Gangs looted businesses and banks, stole bags of food like sugar, rice and flour by the thousand and burnt down homes.

Doctors Without Borders, who ran the hospital in Martison in Port au Prince, providing healthcare free for 300,000 people, were forced to close after competing gangs had the area effectively under siege after the police abandoned the neighborhood. And then just one month later, in August 2021, a huge earthquake struck the western peninsula of Haiti. Over 2,000 lives were lost.

The following month, G9 targeted the VRO fuel terminal, Haiti's main fuel import facility, which is located between the neighborhoods of Citi Soleil and La Saline, both under gang control. Utter and uncontrollable chaos. That's how some Haitians describe the state of their country amid the ongoing gang violence and kidnappings. Now a lack of available fuel is affecting hospitals and schools. This terminal is vitally important for Haiti.

70% of the country's petroleum products are supplied from here. The reason behind this blockade was simple. G9, through its spokesman and leader, barbecue, demanded the resignation of Ariel Henry, who he blames for the assassination of President Moise. And he also called for the UN and US to break ties with the Haitian government to liberate Haiti. The gangs would let the odd fuel truck through their barricades, but would charge exorbitant prices to do so.

According to one retailer who spoke to CNN, it costed around $5,000 for an empty tanker and 20,000 for a full one. Due to this blockade, hospitals, schools, businesses, many of which used generators to deal with the intermittent power, had to reduce their services or close entirely. The chaos was further exacerbated when Haitians, understandably furious at the lack of security and the rise in kidnappings, called a general strike.

You see, in the past, politicians could use their power to influence the behavior of gangs and their leaders. But the position of politicians was weakened through years of political turmoil. And this meant that the influence had waned as gangs were now way more powerful than they used to be. Here's Jacqueline. I was actually working on a particular kidnapping case and this individual was being held and his family was saying that this was politically charged. It just wasn't just some random rap.

And then I'm hearing that there were orders that were given for the gangs to release all of their hostages that they had and that they were alleged payments that were made. But this particular person that I was following was still being held. So we saw these kinds of symbiotic relationships where you had Groups that were carrying out abductions or doing a job.

But what we seen today, and it doesn't mean it may not come back tomorrow, but I think that the absence of any elected official in this country and the gang leaders themselves were defining their own power in the sense of being able to unify and knowing that they're able to exact terror. And also looking at the politicians and saying, you've been using us, and what have we gotten from this? That you have now created something that you really can't control.

And so increasingly, these gang members and these gang leaders have become independent agents, and the genie is out of the bottle. I don't know if it can go back in. That will be tested if and when there is an election.

But as it stands right now, I mean, the anecdotally, what I've heard from people is that in cases where there were, for instance, kidnappings that were happening, if it happened in the area of a particular leader and somebody knew that leader or had some sort of relationship two years ago, you could probably pick up the phone and said, hey, can you do me a favor and release this person? Today? That's not happening.

Needless to say, despite the suffering caused to ordinary Haitians, Ariel Henry refused to step down, citing that the government do not deal with gangs. But the calls for his resignation were growing louder.

So what about the gangs? Well, they've been used by competing centers of political power for years, and we'll cover that dynamic in a little bit. But the first thing to recognize is what we call gangs or armed groups have existed in Haiti in some shape or form for decades, but they've had different names. This is not a new phenomenon that when you look during the Duvalier dictatorship, they were called makuts. During the years of President Jean Petron Aristide, they were called chimers.

Today, we're. We know we're calling them gangs or armed criminal groups. And so what you have found is that they were enforcement tools, right. During the Duvalier dictatorship, they were their secret police. This is how you kept people, people in line. During Aristide years, they were basically in these sort of large slums, but this is where they carried out his popularity. They sort of kept people in line. And, you know, again, it becomes a monster that you create.

In the early years of President Luiz, you saw this. You saw that there was this cohabitation that existed between the power structure, whether it's people who are elected at office or people who are running for office, that if you're running for office, you need to have access to certain neighborhoods. And so there are certain leaders that control these neighborhoods and that you needed to get access to them. So they've been intimately linked to politics for some time.

Neighborhood Self Defense forces that originally arose to combat attacks from former soldiers morphed after the massive earthquake that hit Haiti in 2010. In the aftermath of that quake, younger, less politically motivated members of neighborhood Self Defense groups began to raid and fight other groups over territory. So the weakness of the state post earthquake combined with the gangs being more driven by money and power, to repeat what Jacqueline just said, they created a monster.

Today There are around 200 gangs operating in Haiti with around 95 import Au Prince. They are used as hired muscle for self serving political figures to commit acts of terror on the population. But they've also developed into mafia style groups and some have established connections with transnational criminal networks. Obviously we can't go through each group as that would take an age. But let's just look at the most prominent ones.

We've already heard about the G9 Family and Allies gang, a nine gang coalition led by Jimmy Charizier, aka Barbecue. But what we haven't mentioned yet is that Barbecue was a former police officer. Now, you'll hear a lot of references to Barbecue in this episode, and yes, that's because he's an important figure, but it's also because he seems to enjoy the media spotlight. Hence why most media reports from the country seem to contain an interview with him.

But most gang leaders are relatively silent figures who operate behind the scenes. Here's Romaine. Most of the gang leaders don't talk to the press, don't give interviews, don't receive cameras, and especially not cameras in their turfs. And they don't really talk to anyone outside except if WhatsApp's messages get leaked, voice notes get leaked, or they send a proper message to the population or something like that. But other than that, they are quite silent and discreet.

But still, they're political actors in the sense that they control territory and populations. Alongside G9, we have G Pep, another gang coalition in Port au Prince. This one is led by Gabriel Jean Pierre or T. Gabriel, who led the Nan Brooklyn gang before they joined G Pep. One of the other prominent leaders of G Pep is a guy called Johnson Andre who goes by the alias Izo.

Now Izo is a really interesting character because alongside being a gang leader of the Violent Fives, a guns gang sometimes called the Village de Duc gang or Village of God, which is the name of the area, they are from a neighborhood on the coast in the southwest of Port au Prince. But he's also quite a showy presence on social media, sometimes wearing black clothes and a tactical vest complete with insignia.

Other times wearing very flamboyant and colorful clothing with so many chains around his neck that it's almost like he's doing neck exercises of a Formula 1 driver. Izo is also a rapper. His popularity reached such levels on YouTube that he reportedly released a video on social media opening a package that contained a big silver play button after reaching 100,000 subscribers. This caused an outcry in Haiti and Google subsequently shut down his YouTube account.

G9 and GPEP for a long time were direct rivals with the two gang coalitions responsible for much of the violence. One such battle at the end of 2023 saw a former mathematics and physics teacher turned gang leader within G9, Iskar Andries, killed at some point during a three day confrontation in Citi Soleil that left 166 people dead and more than 1,000 displaced. G9 and GPEP are now both part of Vivonson. Then we have the 400 Mawazo, a very powerful gang led by Joseph Wilson or Lanmo saintjo.

His predecessor was a guy called Jolly Germain, who was sentenced last year in the US to 35 years for gun smuggling and money laundering. Now 400 muazo are also pretty well known for another reason, kidnapping. Because as political patronage of the gangs began to wane in the aftermath of the earthquake and the instability that followed, as well as sanctions that were placed on some political leaders, the gangs had to find alternative forms of income to pay its members.

And so they turned to kidnapping. Here's Jacqueline. During President Moises term, we started to see gangs really emerge in the sense of kidnappings that were happening and the increased numbers of red zones. What we started to see increasingly is that there were no go zones and they were slowly creeping up. And then you had the assassination of the president and you had this void. There was no elected president executive.

I think that the symbolism of that and all that it meant really became this changing factor. And kidnappings have targeted all sorts of people. In 2022, the 400 Mazo gang abducted 17 people from a bus as it traveled through the gang's territory of Cuadibuquet. Passengers were Haitian and Turkish. In October 2021 again, 400 Mwazo kidnapped 17 people.

That included Christian missionaries from the US and Canada, including five children, one of which was an eight month old baby, as well as their Haitian bus driver. They'd been visiting an orphanage a Father. Of the missionaries held hostage told the ministry about the kidnappers. Quote, we are interested in the salvation of these men, and we love them. Another father said, quote, at a family, we are giving forgiveness to these men. We are not holding anything against them.

This as they continue asking for prayers for the safe return of their loved ones. The gang's leader, Joseph Wilson, demanded $1 million for the release of each hostage and threatened to kill them if the ransom was not paid. They were eventually all released by December. Between June and September 2021, it was estimated that up to 80% of kidnappings in Haiti were carried out by 400 Mawaza. They are part of the GPEP coalition, which itself is now part of vivonson.

And let's just linger here on kidnappings because there have been thousands over recent years, so many, in fact, that per capita, Haiti has the unfortunate title of the kidnapping capital of the world. And the vast majority of kidnapping victims are Haitians. The industry generates millions of dollars for the gangs each year. But the true extent of the problem is unknown because people fear to report the event for fear of reprisals from the gangs.

But an extremely conservative estimate puts the income generated from kidnappings at least $25 million a year. It can be a highly organized process. For example, a person living in the rural artiponit could be earmarked for kidnapping by a gang in port au Prince. A gang doesn't control the area this person lives in, so they hire subcontractors to carry out the abduction. But to get the victim back to their territory, they might need to hire different people in different geographic locations.

Along the way, the victim is transferred to different subcontractors until they finally are delivered to the main gang. In addition to that, the gang has to pay those that control the specific roads along the route back to their home turf. According to the United nations integrated office in Haiti, binu, in the last quarter of 2024, there was a 150% surge in kidnappings, with gangs increasingly targeting children.

Finally, I wanted to include this last thing because it kind of tags on to kidnapping, and it's quite horrific. Several local people that have spoken to the GI have indicated that certain gangs, particularly in situ, soleil and canaan, have turned to organ trafficking. Witnesses told of bodies left in the street missing vital organs.

This was also confirmed by people in a hospital, adding that the gangs have their own clinics to treat wounded gang members, but also to extract organs from those who have been kidnapped. But let's go back to the gangs, and we have krav who are led by Viom Innocent, a man who claims to be under divine protection and who seems to have a pochant for the color gold. He is currently on the FBI's most wanted list for the kidnapping of two US citizens, which resulted in the murder of one.

He's also under sanctions. He believes that the gangs can usher in a bright future for Haiti, whereas Haitian police want him for kidnapping, military murder, rape, armed rape, vehicle theft, theft, and the destruction of property. All of these gangs, along with many others, have been declared terrorist organizations by the neighboring country of the Dominican Republic, who Haiti share the island of Hispaniola with.

But what's really interesting about these various gangs and their leaders is that they are creatures of the system in Haiti. Here's Romaine. For most of them, we're talking about gang leaders, men that are between 40 and 55 years old, probably, that are usually coming from the system in the sense that those men.

Gang leaders, the top 20 are ex police officers, ex police agents, ex political leaders in their neighborhoods, ex community leaders in the neighborhood, with experience, for example, in political militant activities, political rallies. They were political operators back then. They were the head of a small vigilante brigade in their neighborhood that was connected to a political party, for example, and so on and so forth.

So the gang leaders we look at, they're not, you know, they're not warlords operating in a remote forest or a mountainous or jungle area far away from the capital. They're actually men that were, for most of them, born and raised in the very neighborhoods in which they're still operating today. And they had, for some of them, at least, an official public function, you know, like being a police officer, for example.

So they know exactly how the system works because they were raised and trained within the system, actually. And I think they know that what you have to gain in Haiti is much bigger when you operate within the system than when you try to break out from the system.

Let me just finish with one more gang, and that is the Wolf Jeremy gang, led by a guy called Monel Felix, alias Mikano, because at the end of last year, they were involved in a truly shocking case in the neighborhood. They take their name from Wharf Jeremy, which is in Citi Soleil. I'll let Jacqueline take up the story.

I have to tell you, the day that I started getting the messages about the massacre, the idea that finger citizens were targeted, and it was targeted, tied to, quote, unquote, witchcraft, I was speechless. Like, I. I literally. I remember just taking the bed that day. I mean, normally I will jump on a story. This was just not a story that I took any pleasure in reporting. And I was in disbelief. Right. I was in disbelief. And I was talking to.

To people who were tracking it, either from people inside the community or human rights groups or the UN and yeah, and it was just. It was coming back. It's true. It's true. It's just a question now of the numbers. Of the numbers. And so our understanding is that you have a gang member whose child fell ill. And I don't know who told him or why he believed this, but it was that, oh, it's the old people that are eating your kids, that are killing your child. And they targeted them.

And then people who tried to escape were also targeted. The gangs took the victims to an execution site where they were either shot or hacked to pieces with machetes before their bodies were either burnt or dismembered and thrown into the sea. The man who is alleged to have ordered this brutal attack was Meccano. Rights groups say he wanted to avenge his son's death after being told witchcraft. Was to blame for his mistake. Mysterious fatal illness.

For Haitians, the spiraling turmoil is no longer comprehensible. Speaking to Widlaw Merancourt, editor in chief at AO Post and Washington Post writer for Haiti, about the same event, he also described it as the most horrific thing he's covered over the years in Haiti. And there is a difficulty to truly understand what happened in its entirety because of the control of. Of the gangs. Over the days, the gang members in the area continued to attack more people.

And it is one of the first big massacres in this country that happened where we don't really have images of what happened. We don't have images because the gangs seize phones of people, threaten them to assassinate them if they even speak to people outside of the slum. And allegedly they bury the traces of the massacre. So we have to talk to people who live in the area, you know, were lucky to flee to really understand what's going on.

It was one of the most brutal massacres we've had in the last few years. You will probably realize throughout this episode that there are so many examples of brutality and the countless dead that it's almost overwhelming. And that's true. But these attacks, these massacres, we should always remember that these are people with their own families, friends, and ambitions. The level of barbarity of these gangs is astounding.

An example of this came just a few weeks ago when Vivonson attacked the neighborhood of Kenskof, which is in the mountains above Port au Prince. A fierce fight between the Haitian National Police and Vivonson ensued. A number of gang members were killed, but the gangs burnt down houses, fired indiscriminately at those trying to flee, and murdered entire families in their homes. According to reports, 50 people were killed and over 3,000 displaced, including 721 children.

Heavily armed gangs attacked Kenskow, a neighborhood home to Haiti's elite, killing at least 40 people, including pastors, teachers, children, while displacing more than 1660 residents. The Viva and Sam gang coalition stormed the area, going house to house, opening fire indiscriminately. Despite prior intelligence warnings, the government government failed to act in time, leaving the community vulnerable.

Police, initially overwhelmed, later launched counter attacks, killing at least 20 gang members. Kenskow, a strategic route linking the west and Southeast department, has become a key gang target as they expand control over 85% of Port au Prince.

But the reason I wanted to share this with you is because there was one story within this attack that I stumbled across about a young mother called Eliana. Her home was invaded by gang members who told her to throw her two month old baby son on a fire. She of course refused. So they forcibly ripped the baby from her arms and threw him onto a fire in front of her.

Eliana, after witnessing this horror, was found wandering around another neighborhood in Port au Prince called Delmas 103, two weeks later in severe psychological distress and was refusing to eat. Local residents took her to the police station where she died that night of starvation, exhaustion and grief. I'm shocked by the level and the type of violence, the cruelty, and I'm not using that word lightly. This is William O'Neill or Bill.

He's the UN Independent Expert on the human rights situation in Haiti. I mean, this is just absolutely cruel. To kill elderly people, to kill farmers, to target children, to target hospitals and in schools and force people to flee their homes and knowing that they will have nowhere to go that's safe. And that's why I don't believe us for a second. When the gangs talk about, some of the leaders talk about they're there for the people. It's an unjust system. They want to change all this.

No, they're not. No one who really cared about the population would be behaving the way they do. Anyone who has listened to this series before should be familiar with the way that gangs operate all over the world as part of their criminal governance. The use or threat of violence and the fear of it is all part of the way they Assert dominance and control over the populations living under them. And although it can appear random, There is sometimes strategy behind it.

The gang violence, I'm convinced, is anything but random. It is a strategic, intentional plan policy. I mean, you know, they don't necessarily put things down like in 20 page white papers about here's our strategy. But it's so clear, you have to infer. And even from some of their statements, I mean, you don't have to infer anything. They also will say, we will show who's in charge. I mean, one of the reasons why they attack police stations, they attack state government, anything.

Most of these areas now within the gang territories, there's no more state, There are no police, there are no courts in, in many cases, there are no schools, there's no social welfare, there's no anything go down the long list. And they want to maintain that control and maintain that power. And they're attacking health care, they're attacking education, because they want to show who is in charge, who is the boss in these territories, and that nothing can be done without their approval.

For example, the attack on Kenskoff wasn't random. Gangs had been warning about the attack for the week leading up to the actual event. The neighborhood of Kenskoff is considered a upper middle class area and also much closer to the financial and political hub of port au Prince. Taking this area effectively encircles the city. In addition to that, it also means the gangs further extend their control over routes in and out of the city.

This attack in Kenskow, up in the hills above ptionville which is above port au prince, that's not an accident either because the people up there, there had been this more or less a footpath that would go from Kenskoff down to the southern coast. And then once you're down there, there's a good road, and then you go to jacmel or other cities, and people started to use that and they started to widen it so that at least you get motor scooters. You still can't get trucks or large vehicles.

But people were starting to use that as a way to get in and out of the city without going through gang checkpoint. And the gangs said, hold on a second, no, no, you can't. We want to take that road. We want to have that control again. We want to make money from people going in and out. And that's one of the reasons.

The other reason is they also then want to completely encircle the city and threaten to come down further and take some parts of the areas that they have not taken over yet, or at least create much more difficult access to those areas. So. And the gangs now are working together in a way they haven't. They're fairly well organized. There's a hierarchy. Orders go down, orders get carried out, or else. And then there's also an increasing cooperation across gangs.

If we look inside neighborhoods controlled by gangs, and right now that is estimated to be around 85 to 90% of Port au Prince. Last year, on 24 December, a government minister wanted to reopen the Haitian State University hospital in the capital, which happens to be in a gang neighborhood. And politicians being politicians, they invited some journalists along. Here's Widlaw.

By the last quarter of last year, we had a new government, and they wanted to have some publicity around their capacities and capabilities to do things that the previous government was unable to do. In the same month of December, this government went to Cite Soleil, it's Islam, controlled by gang leaders. They wanted to open a hospital there called Chancel.

And instead of dealing with the authorities and making sure you don't just have security for the hospital, but you also have security around the hospital, you also have security for folks who wants to come to the hospital. What they did is, according to our reporting, they went on and negotiated with the gangs in this area.

And the gangs posed some strict restrictions as to if they want to come to do what is, you know, considered to be a quick photo op and publicity, they need not come with any Haitian police officers, so they need to come alone. And they pose also many other material restrictions to make it happen. And indeed, the authorities went to the hospital at the time.

The minister made a quick speech, and they claimed that the hospital was open, you know, and the security was not assured or guaranteed by any Haitian authorities, according to journalists who went there. And fast forward a few weeks later, they tried to apply the same logic to another hospital, which is the biggest one in Haiti, the public hospital at the lower part of the city. The reporting shows that the police was not mobilized for the events. They invited multiple journalists.

The same thing again. And it is likely that negotiations were not finished when the minister announced the reopening of the hospital. And while the journalists were waiting at the entrance of the hospital, the gangs basically came and shoot indiscriminately at anyone being there. At least a journalist was killed, many were severely wounded, and a police officer was in the vicinity also was killed. And that is the most extraordinary thing.

This was a minister of the state, and yet they have to ask the gang's permission. To enter the territory. And you can hear echoes of the criminal control we heard about in our recent episode on the gangs of buenaventura in colombia. So let's look at the relationship between the gangs, politics, and the economic elite of the country, because they are all intertwined. Ears remain.

The question of the relationships between gangs, economic actors, and political actors in haiti Is really the million dollars question. Like, that's the key issue of not only the research and analysis and how we can better document what's happening, but it's also the key issue to solve if you want to get on the road to crisis resolution.

Unfortunately, if you look at the relationship between criminals, Economic actors, and political actors As a triangle, the heart of the triangle is very hard to crack. It's very hard to exactly understand how the relationships between criminals, Economic actors, and political actors still happen today. What we think and what we say Is that those relationships still happen.

The fact that the gangs have become much more powerful within the triangle doesn't mean that the triangle doesn't exist anymore. What we say at the global initiative Is that the gangs are not fully autonomous from the system. The gangs have become much more powerful within the system. The gangs want to maintain themselves within the system.

They don't want to break out absolutely from the system, but what they want is the best and most powerful seat possible, Again, within the system, not outside of it. The gangs have not produced or proposed in haiti an alternative model of government, for example. They don't have a different ideology. They. They don't have a different religion to bring. They don't have a different ethnicity to bring.

It's not a context of civil war or insurgency in which you have an actor which is interested in taking power, Seizing this power, Occupying the seat, and offering you, for better or worse, Another system, or at least another ideology.

What we see is that the gangs have grown in power significantly within the triangle, within the system, which means that they're much more able than two years ago, three years ago, five years ago, to talk and negotiate in a very informal, discreet, secret way, Most of the time, with economic and political actors eye to eye.

Instead of receiving only orders from their bosses, Political or economic, the gangs are able to sit down and say, you will have to take me into account, and not only you will have to take me into account. I have the power, and never forget that I have the power to take you down, for example, I have the power to take your territory, your neighborhood, your ministry. And I have such a power and such a capacity for violence and chaos. Then when we Negotiate.

You will have to give me better terms than three, four, five years ago.

A good example of this dynamic is the Grand Gryf gang, sometimes called the Sevillon gang. They are based in the rural area called Artibonit, which is around 100 km north of Port au Prince. They became publicly known in about 2015, when a political candidate called Profane Victor began arming young men in Petit Riviere to help secure electoral success, which he achieved. But that group of armed young men transformed into the Grand Griff gang.

And since that time, the gang has grown more powerful and more autonomous, expanding its control over parts of this important agricultural region. This has led to the invasion of farmland, targeting both farmers and landowners, with gangs demanding payment to leave them alone. What's important to realize here is that Artibonit is the breadbasket of Haiti, and attacks on farmers has led to a significant decrease in cultivation, further exacerbating the food crisis in Haiti.

The growth of gangs like Grand Griff and others has, like in the capital, resulted in increased murders, kidnappings, extortion, and sexual violence.

At the end of September 2024, the US and the UN placed sanctions on both the leader of the Grand Griff gang, Luxon Ilan, and the now former member of Parliament, Profane Victor, who was accused of trafficking weapons to the gangs. But the sanctions seem to be somewhat of a damp, square squib, causing little concern to those targeted, because just days after the sanctions, the Grand Griff gang carried out one of the largest massacres in the recent history of Haiti.

The gang entered Ponsonde silently by canoe in Artebonit, burning, looting, and murdering as they went. Over 6,000 people were forced to flee. Over 100 people were killed, men, women, and children, including babies. Fleeting violence has become a daily challenge for millions of people in Haiti as gangs tried to extend their control across the country. At least 70 people were killed in the town of Ponsonde in central Haiti by a gang known as Grand Cris, known for its cruel attacks on civilians.

Why did they attack? Well, apparently they were angry at a local defence force who'd been trying to prevent the gangs establishing checkpoints and extortion rackets. So where were the Haitian national police? Local leaders, including a former mayor, said the internal conflicts within the police meant their response was delayed. And it's worth remembering that it was a politician, Profane Victor, who first armed these gangs to try and help him get elected and then lost control.

Now, the current dynamic where gangs have stepped out of the shadow of politics is largely the result of the fallout from the assassination of Jovenel Moise. Because there have not been elections in Haiti since his election in late 2016, and therefore prospective candidates haven't needed to use them. President Moiz himself delayed elections. His successor, Ariel Henry, also delayed elections.

And as things stand now, the transitional presidential council is running the country, with the next general elections due in November this year, almost a decade since the last one. And so if we think about the triangle that remain talked about political, economic, and the gangs, the political side has been weak and shrinking inwards for some time. But as the political point of the triangle contracts, the gang's point has extended outwards.

So basically, at election time, those groups, those actors that are not supposed to be talking to each other, negotiating and working together, the criminals, the economic players, and the political players, during election times, especially during campaigning, they used to sit and negotiate votes, territory, favors, economic favors, retributions, money, the organization of marches in support of this candidate, the organization of the repression against the other candidate to make sure that you

win the elections. And basically the moment of the elections was working like a moment of exchange of resources and favors. And that moment, I think, was working in a strange way as a tool for regulating the relationships between the criminals, the political actors, and the economic actors. Like a moment of ceremony, if you wish.

And the assassination of the president and the opening of the sequence in which we're still in, made that moment disappear because the country has not been able to organize elections since then. So the actors, they're still working together, but they don't have a moment, or they don't have a ceremony, or they don't have a market in which their relations are regulated. So each actor is just trying to get the most from the situation he can get because there is nothing else to win.

It's just like the gangs want more territory, more control, more access to extortion, et cetera. The politicians, they want to stay in power although there are no elections. So they have to make sure that in a way, the system keeps on working, but in a. In a very informal way, so you don't actually see elections, for example, coming up. And economic actors in between have made sure to try to maintain their stronghold as well.

One of the consistent things that I've thought throughout this episode is that given the extent of the control the gangs now exert over the capital, Port au Prince in particular, do they have any political ambitions? Everyone I spoke to said that they didn't think so, despite occasional words to that effect.

But BBQ announced in January this year that Vivonson intends to transform into a political party and styles itself on representing marginalized communities, a suggestion that would be laughable if not for the brutal reality Vivonson and other gangs inflict on those same communities they claim to represent.

Aside from this, multiple members of different political parties in Haiti submitted a document to the Caribbean Community and Common Market, or caricom, which suggested that the current transitional government in Haiti be replaced with a slimmed down alternative. But the part that caused the most controversy was that it mentioned Vivonson supported the idea. This is not the first time it's been suggested that gangs should be included in discussions around a political transition.

Some Caribbean leaders suggested it in 2020 before. Others have gone so far to suggest that Vivonson be recognized as a political entity. But this has been rejected by the Transitional Council, with senior members describing the idea as letting the devil in your bed. And most Haitians tend to agree with that. Indeed, some have argued that even suggesting their involvement indicates collusion between the political class and the gangs. So what is the most likely scenario?

Again, everyone I spoke to for this podcast said they didn't believe the gangs had an eye for actually running the state as a government. Instead, they are waiting for a return to some sense of normality and that triangle dynamic. In the meantime, they are seeking to expand their territorial control, putting themselves in the strongest possible position to negotiate with the future political and economic actors.

The fact that some of the gang leaders said that they wanted to create a political party and become a political party, I honestly don't think it's going to fully happen very soon, although they say they will do it, because I think most of the gang leaders know that they cannot be running, for example, for electoral seats in the near future.

So what they will do instead is make sure that within the negotiations that will happen at some point, and the bargaining, be it formal or informal, be it secret or very open, the gang leaders will say, as they used to do, I believe will say, I control a territory and I control population. So if you want to win the votes in my turf, you have to negotiate with me. Gangs in Haiti are political by nature, if you wish, which doesn't mean that they will become an electoral, visible force.

And you won't necessarily have a gang leader being elected mayor here or there, but they will be in the back as a very, very powerful force that will have to be reckoned with. What's likely to happen, like in a mafia kind of environment, if you go without me, if you want to win the territory, if you want to operate in my territory, without my consent, it is likely that I will use violence to make sure that you do.

And I think this is how the gangs will use their power within the political sphere, not to become mayors themselves, because they know it's too. It's too dangerous. It's probably too unacceptable for Haitians and for the international community altogether, especially for top leaders. So they know that they have to operate discreetly. And the good thing for them is that they used to do it 5, 10, 15 years ago. They know how it works.

So I think what they're trying to do today, for most of them, is just consolidate their position and wait until the situation goes back, in a way to what we used to have in Haiti, which is a violent and unstable, but not to the extent we see today, political arena and political sphere.

And this is because, fundamentally, the gangs of Haiti are creatures of politics. They have been enmeshed in the political process for so long. The use of those criminal actors, by politicians or economic actors to enforce rules, to suppress popular mobilizations that you don't like, to control territory, to control populations, to control markets, to control votes, to control relationships, and to enforce what you want to enforce on the ground.

It's something that happened during the dictatorship in Haiti. It's something that happened in a slightly different way, of course, in the 90s, after the return to democracy. And then I think what happened is. And again, it's not proper to Haiti.

I think we have seen this in Latin America quite a lot, is that the more, and this is quite paradoxical and a bit sad, but the more competitive the democratic game becomes, the more you have political parties competing for power, the more those political parties, unfortunately, instead of saying, I will renounce to the use of violent proxies to enforce my win, they will actually look for other violent actors to work for them.

A good example of politics using the gangs and the terror they produce was evident in something known as the Petro Caribbe scandal. Across the Caribbean Sea from Haiti is the country of Venezuela. Back in 2005, the then President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, set up something called Petro Caribbean in an attempt to extend its regional influence. The scheme utilized its huge oil reserves, selling it at a reduced rate to countries in the Caribbean.

At that time, oil prices were really high, so countries would pay 40 to 60% of the price up front, with the remainder financed as a low interest loan. Payment could be deferred for up to 25 years with an interest rate of just 1%. The idea is that it would free up revenue to help develop the Economy and fund social programs. Haiti was one of those countries. Now, according to a Haitian Senate report, between 2008 and 2018, possibly up to $2 billion was misappropriated by successive governments.

Infrastructure contracts being paid to politically connected firms, including one 60 million road project that was paid in full. And yet the road was never built. Jovenel Moiz's own banana company, agritrans, was paid $700,000 to repair roads. But eventually Venezuela's own well documented problems caused the cheap oil to stop flowing, which had a huge knock on effect on Haiti. Here's Whitlaw. This money was largely mismanaged in Haiti.

According to multiple reports, including from the Haiti Senate at the time and back in 2018. The mismanagement and corruption from this program were billions of dollars allegedly were stolen or taken by public officials and their friends in their private sectors. The naked corruption by members of the Haitian political class and then a government decision to raise fuel prices by up to 51% in 2018 led to a burst of violent protests and looting.

After a week of political crisis and violent protests in Haiti, which have left at least seven people dead, there'd been no word from the president. With the demonstrations against him showing no sign of ending, Jovenel Moiz finally broke his silence, announcing he would not be stepping down. The latest protests have been triggered by the country's inflation and skyrocketing prices and a scandal over development loans made by Venezuela, where billions of dollars are unaccounted for.

A court report last month suggested that President Moise had been involved in irregularities. But it also started a movement that gained popular support on social media and was amplified by the Haitian diaspora in the US and Canada known as the Petro Caribbe Challenge, which demanded accountability for the missing funds that sparked the biggest. Political movement by the youth in Haiti in decades. Hundreds of thousands of people took the streets to denounce the corruption scandal.

And for many, we are still, you know, we are living in the wake of this protest today. And then in mid November 2018, in the LA Salle neighborhood of Port au Prince, where a lot of the protests were organized, a gang arrived armed with guns and machetes and led by Barbecue, who was a serving police officer at the time. Over the next 14 hours, they forcibly removed people from their homes and set them on fire, raped women and girls, beheaded citizens and burnt others alive.

Some were shot or hacked to pieces, According to an article written by Jacqueline for the Miami Herald. Some bodies were dumped on garbage heaps and their corpses were picked apart by pigs. 71 people were killed. After the massacre. Reports began to emerge that two senior officials from Moise's government met with barbecue two weeks before to plan and provide resources for the attack.

At least two public officials were implicated in the massacre, and these people were associated officially with the government at the time. And it is not a new story that the Haitian government would use its power to crush opposition and to crush protest violently.

And although the United States and multiple reportings points public officials at the time, for instance, someone like Fidel Mosheri as people who participated in this massacre, they are still going around in Haiti without any problems whatsoever. Actually, Fidel Moshehri was arrested a few years back by a few police officers in Poland, and he was quickly released. A Yibo Post wrote a really good article on this.

Fernel Monchari, the former Director general of the Ministry of the Interior and Local Government, was arrested in 2021. He was driving a black SUV with an official government license plate. But when he was pulled over, police found another three license plates in the vehicle. Apparently this is a common tactic for kidnapping gangs. They asked him to accompany them to the police station.

And on the drive over, it's alleged by one of the arresting officers, who's now a former police officer, and confirmed by two of his colleagues that Mon Cherie offered the five police $10,000 each for his release without any legal proceedings. They refused. But within 30 minutes of arriving at the police station, Mon Cheri was released. Some reports claim that this was a result of political pressure. Others say that it was secured by a local gang that was part of the G9 coalition.

And the official version was that he was released because the case was nothing more than a simple contravention related to the use of outdated or unauthorized license plates, something that has been disputed. His arrest and swift release caused outcry, with some remarking that this was an example of high level protection and. And impunity. But what makes this story even worse was the police officers who were trying to do their job began to receive death threats.

And many of these police officers had to flee Haiti because of threats against their own lives. I spoke to many of them actually, and it is baffling to see how those who try to hold powerful people into account, those who try to enforce the laws, are the ones having to flee to protect their lives. And those credibly accused of massacres and all sorts of brutality against the Haitian population can live freely in Haiti today. And here lies a perfect example of impunity.

These law enforcement officers were trying to do their job. But the system failed them at every level. It was reported in 2022 that in the first six months of that year, almost 1,000 police officers were not turning up to work. A number had even left the country for fear of reprisals due to the inability or unwillingness of many state officials to defend them.

Mon Cheri and another former state official, Joseph Pierre Richard Duplan, alongside barbecue, were sanctioned by the US for their alleged role in the massacre at La Saline. Foreign is one of the poorest nations in the world. And according to the World bank, in 2023, GDP per capita is US$1,693. And due to the ongoing gang violence and the impact that's having on people and the wider country, the economy is contracted for six consecutive years in 2024 by 4.2%.

And so how do the gangs make their money? Obviously, we've already touched on kidnapping, but there are a small number that have international connections in the trafficking of arms and illicit drugs like cocaine, which we'll come to in the next episode. But the vast majority of gangs make their money through extortion. We've already touched on this a bit, and we've talked about how the gangs blockaded fuel terminals and charged huge amounts to allow tankers to go in and out.

One way they exert control is a classic of organized criminal groups, protection rackets. They offer protection to businesses. Refusal will likely see your business burnt down and you possibly killed. So although protection rackets often talk about the gang protecting you from other gangs, the immediate threat is always from the gang actually offering you that protection. Indeed, one businessman who has interests in the port said that every container, every landing is gang container controlled.

From the ship to the landing, then the transport, then the storage warehouse right through to the exit.

Everything is in the hands of the gangs before passing under police protection. And he went on to add that the gangs are actually more efficient and cheaper than the police, because of course, you have to pay the police on the side to get good service. Brokers run the rackets on behalf of the gangs, who are said to charge businesses between $5,000 and $20,000 a week to operate and then an additional tax on each container that is unloaded off a ship.

Sometimes the gangs ask the brokers to arrange the delivery of weapons and ammunition instead of cash. And so the current expansion of the gangs in Port au Prince, where, according to some estimates, they now control up to 90% of the capital, exacerbates a situation that has existed for some time. The gang expansion is spreading their Extortion rackets further and further, further increasing their income in the process.

But there is a paradox in the relationship Haitian gangs have with extortion. It's their greatest source of income, but perhaps their greatest weakness. You see, regular listeners to deep dive will be aware that the most successful organized criminal groups and networks operate a diverse portfolio. So let's take the Drangheta clans. Originating in Calabria, Italy. They are most well known for the European cocaine market, but they also made their name in kidnapping.

They're also involved with construction, real estate, hospitality, financial services, links to human trafficking and agriculture, waste management and gambling, just to name a few. Whereas in Haiti, the gangs have an over reliance on extortion for their income, which requires them to gain and hold territory. Here's Romain. Let's say it's not a fully mafia system in the system sense of how it runs. In Italy, for example, in which, you know, the mafia is much more invisible now.

It runs, you know, contracts and complex financial flows and complex corruption schemes and so on and so forth. In Haiti, it's quite powerful, but at the same time quite basic. Extortion in the sense that you control turf, you control populations, you control roads, you set up a checkpoint and you tell anyone who comes across, you need to pay me and if you don't, I kill you.

Basically, if we regain control of at least one portion of those territories, we will be able to put pressure on the gangs, which honestly, they don't have access to tons of revenue flows. They don't have tons of options in Haiti today. They can make money out of kidnappings. Yes, they can make money out of extorting the people that live on their turfs, but those people don't have like tons of money to offer. What makes really money, proper money, is the legal economy that you're extorting.

We need to strike and we need to strike in a smart way. At least a couple of pockets of really, really lucrative extortion schemes that are happening on the ground in Haiti and see which progress we can make from there. That's it for part one of Living Together, the Gangs of Haiti. I'd like to thank Widlaw, Jacqueline, Bill and Romain. This investigation has been huge. So there are a couple more episodes to follow shortly.

The work my colleagues here at the GI have done on Haiti has been exceptional. So I've added links to various papers that have been written in the podcast notes. Obviously, if you want more research into organized crime from around the world, head over to our website, globalinitiative.net.

also visit our YouTube page where you can find a load of other video content like the Underworld series which is a one on one interview series with authors who tackle the subject of organized crime and illicit economies. We'll be back soon with part two on Haiti. This has been deep dive from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. I'm Jack Meaghan Vickers. Thanks for listening.