Haiti officials and elites have been making headlines for years when it comes to drug trafficking, but what happens when $10 billion dollars becomes a bit of a problem?
Haiti officials and elites have been making headlines for years when it comes to drug trafficking, but what happens when $10 billion dollars becomes a bit of a problem? How do you launder and conceal $10 billion dollars without drawing attention, especially when investments in the Caribbean Islands and Central America have already been saturated by drug money? What makes an already bad situation worse? The impact the drug traffickers have on the people of Haiti is absolutely dire. While the drug lords rule the streets, the people of Haiti are dying a slow death from starvation, lack of jobs, and a lawless nation brimming with abuse and neglect.
Who are the players and how has this managed to go on for as long as it has? Is there an end in sight? In 2014 the authorities of the Dominican Republic were alerted by the U.S. tax authorities that they were aware of collusion with the mafia sector of the Haitian financial system in money laundering. Because of this, the Dominican Republic may quite possibly be keeping their distance, but what of other countries and island nations involved such as Colombia, the Bahamas, and the United States of America?
This is a deep tunnel with some hidden burrows that lead to very interesting connections. Stay with me as I give a brief history of drug trafficking through the hub of Haiti, where the drugs are coming in and going to, some key arrests, bad actors and their undesirable connections, and a possible ray of hope amid all this devastation that just recently dropped yesterday as I was writing this. It is a very exciting possibility! Read on… it is a long article, but necessary in order to include all players, connections, and what this has done to the people of Haiti. So if you are one with a 3-minute attention span, I highly suggest scrolling down to see the guts of this before bookmarking it never to return – you do not want to miss the ending. This is BIG.
WARNING: There are some disturbing photos farther down in this article. In trying to keep this as real as possible so you understand how serious of a matter this is, I felt it was necessary to include them. Forgive me, they are not easy to look at.
A Brief History of Drug Trafficking Through Haiti – The Players
My source tells me that several people in the parliament of Haiti, as well as police officials are involved in the current drug trafficking ring. A powerful notary (equivalent to a U.S. attorney) in Haiti that deals with land and assets handles their funds, while paying off high-ranking politicians in D.C. for protection. This had gone on for years. Hopefully with the new administration and draining of the swamp, those officials have already been kicked to the curb or are soon to be exposed. In light of the new information released that I cover at the end, we may finally be seeing some action. Let’s get behind it and make this information fly so we can blow this wide open and bring an end to it!
How did we get to this point? Below are some cliff notes of arrests of high-ranking officials, their relatives, and the elites that have been circulating the drug trafficking sector for quite some time. These are some of the key players, and it’s important to understand the key players because of their ties to other “key players”.
This chaotic, impoverished country has been a bustling crossroads for moving Colombian cocaine to the United States for at least 20 years. But since the departure of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Feb. 29, investigators, diplomats and government officials here describe emerging evidence of a state so riddled with drug money that it touched even the presidential palace, through Mr. Aristide’s chief of security.
The Clinton administration used force to usher Mr. Aristide back to power in 1994 after he was pushed out in a coup.
So much drug money was at stake in the power struggle that culminated in Mr. Aristide’s departure that Bruce Bagley, a professor at the University of Miami who has studied drug trafficking in Haiti, called the rebellion ”basically a narco-coup.”
”The battle was over who is going to control the drug trafficking and the profits of the drug trade,” he said.
”Our biggest concern is the drug trafficking,” the United States ambassador, James B. Foley, said in a speech to Haiti’s Chamber of Commerce in Port-au-Prince last month. ”With the departure of one regime that maintained intimate relations with big drug traffickers,” he added, ”there will be an effort to rebuild the networks, including by trying to infiltrate and manipulate the police.”
American officials say that at least 80 tons of cocaine was shipped through Haiti in the Aristide years, and drug enforcement officials and diplomats estimate that 8 percent of the cocaine shipped from Colombia to the United States still flows through Haiti.
D) Just one month later in June, 2004 the Sun Sentinel published ‘Ex-senator in Haiti Faces Drug Charge: Aristide Party Member in Custody in Miami’ as stated below:
The U.S. investigation into drugs, money and corruption under Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristidestretched Tuesday from the ranks of the Haitian National Police into the upper echelon of the Senate and ruling political party.
Fourel Celestin, a former president of the Senate and member of Aristide’s Famni Lavalas Party, was taken into custody Tuesday at the Miami offices of the Drug Enforcement Administration. He is being held without bail.
After learning of the search, Celestin turned himself in at the U.S. Embassy on Tuesday morning, officials in Haiti said. He is scheduled to appear this afternoon before a federal magistrate in Miami, where he will be presented with a criminal complaint charging him with conspiring to import cocaine into the United States.
The complaint alleges that Celestin was involved in drug activity from 1995 to January 2003. He is the fifth Haitian official to face U.S. drug charges since Aristide was forced out in February.
Rudy Therassan, a former commander of the national police, was indicted Friday by a federal grand jury in Miami.
He is accused of eight counts of cocaine conspiracy and money laundering, and federal authorities are seeking the forfeiture of nearly $1.9 million in alleged drug-trafficking proceeds.
Oriel Jean, Aristide’s former head of palace security; Jean Nesly Lucien, former director-general of the national police, and Evintz Brillant, former chief of narcotics for the national police, also are in custody, accused in criminal complaints with conspiring to import cocaine into the United States.
E) In 2011 the Nation published ‘Haiti WikiLeaks Sparks Political Furor and Elite Drama’ reporting that:
Fritz Mevs told the embassy that the president of the Haitian Chamber of Commerce, Reginald Boulos, had “distributed arms to the police and had called on others to do so in order to provide cover to his own actions.” Boulos currently sits on the board of President Bill Clinton’s Interim Haiti Recovery Commission (IHRC), which controls the spending of billions donated to rebuild Haiti after the January 12, 2010. quake.
Mevs told Ambassador Foley that “Haiti’s real enemy and the true source of insecurity [was] a small nexus of drug-dealers and political insiders that control a network of dirty cops and gangs that not only were responsible for committing the kidnappings and murders, but were also frustrating the efforts of well-meaning government officials and the international community to confront them.”
At the center of this cabal, according to Mevs, was prominent attorney Gary Lissade, formerly a lead counsel for the military government of Gen. Raoul Cédras in the early 1990s. Today, Lissade sits, alongside Reginald Boulos, on the board of the Clinton co-chaired IHRC. Attempts to reach Lissade and Boulos for comment through the IHRC were unsuccessful.
Foley wrote that although his embassy “cannot confirm whether the alleged cabal of political insiders allied with South American narco-traffickers is controlling the gangs, we have seen indications of alliances between drug dealers, criminal gangs and political forces that could threaten to make just such a scenario possible via the election of narco-funded politicians.”
It’s also important to note that Michel Martelly appointed Fritz Mevs’ brother Gregory Mevs and Bill Clinton Co-Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Council for Economic Growth & Investment (CCPDEI). Gregory Mevs also assisted the Clinton Foundation after the earthquake. Gary Lissade has since passed away.
F) In 2015, as reported by the Haiti Sentinel as well as other sources, Marc Antoine Acra became the prime suspect in a drug-trafficking case sparked by the seizure of 82 kilos of cocaine, 10 kilos of heroine; the largest haul ever by the Haitian National Police (PNH). This was raising a lot of questions due to his relationship with President Jovenel Moise, especially after Moise’s visit to the Dominican Republic which has become a top route for narcotics trafficking, and which happens to be where sources say Acra is currently hiding out.
In 2016 Marc Antoine Acra, head of NABATCO importing company, Sébastien François Xavier Acra and Gregory Georges, alias Ti Ketan were charged for “illicit drug trafficking” after transporting a cargo of sugar on the Manzanares ship from Colombia.
Also named in the indictment are Fedner Doliscar aka Surpris, and Jacquelin Wilfrid aka Bouboul, who are charged with “complicity in smuggling of drugs.”
A few key details of this case are as follows:
• The Manzanares ship flying a Panamanian flag was anchored in Fritz Mevs’ Port Terminal Varreaux.
• The shipping agency Madsen Export-Import SA was an agency contracted by NAVESCO to work for Marc Antoine Acra’s company NABATCO.
• The sugar cargo was Incauca brand that was commissioned by Nabatco with a Colombian company names Azucares Y Mieles.
• The sugar was loaded at the port of Buenaaventura in Colombia by the Sociedad Porturia Regional de Buenaventura.
Statement from Marc Antoine Acra, owner of NABATCO when the seizure took place in 2015:
Faced with the progression of derogatory rumors, comments and press reports, the company stock Bag and National Trading Co. Ltd., better known as the NABATCO, represented by its Director General M Marc Antoine Acra, wants to review the record of narcotics seized on Manzanares boat and bring some facts to the public’s attention.
NABATCO is in the sugar trade for over twenty years and has maintained more than ten years of excellent professional relationships with Colombian society CJ DE azúcares Y mieles SA itself, sugar exports managed globally and enjoys an excellent reputation in this domain.
The NABATCO wishes to clarify that narcotics were found on April 22, 2015 in the hold of MANZANARES and not inside bags of sugar during unloading, done under the supervision of regular supervisory authorities and BLTs.
The NABATCO cautions that vessels carrying cargoes of sugar does not belong to the NABATCO, it is a Freight American company that is responsible for chartering boats for NABATCO, and payment of the freight is made to that company which itself rule with the owners of these boats.
The NABATCO more precise that transport of boats, are done according to normal procedures. These loads are proceeded under the supervision of Colombian port authorities checked by the narcotics control authorities and the security service before leaving the port of Buenaventura. Neither the Colombian port authority, the shipping agent or “surveyor WSS” has raised any irregularity mention about the sugar cargo.
The NABATCO remains available to the authorities to carry out investigations and come to a quick resolution of this unfortunate situation that has caused serious injury and affects the activities of several of its clients.
G) In 2015 the New York Times did an amazing article (I have to hand it to them) on the inner circle of the power players involved in drugs, money laundering, murders and elections. I highly recommend reading this entire article as it is chock-full of key info, but I have extracted snippets below to give you the broad scope of players involved:
For two months, Mr. Martelly has governed Haiti by executive order, concentrating power in the hands of a man who, his critics say, is a prisoner of his past, surrounded by a network of friends and aides who have been arrested on charges including rape, murder, drug trafficking and kidnapping.
One of Mr. Martelly’s senior advisers was jailed for six months during the president’s tenure after being accused of killing a man in a gunfight at the Dominican border. Another friend of the president vanished last year, shortly after being released from jail in a marijuana trafficking case.
The prosecutor, in that case, fled the country fearing retaliation.
Yet another of the president’s associates is in jail, accused of running a kidnapping ring. The authorities are trying to determine whether the man, Woodley Ethéart, who said he worked at the Ministry of Interior, laundered ransom money through a lucrative catering contract at the presidential palace, an investigator familiar with the case said.
The Martelly administration’s influence has been criticized most for its effect on the judiciary, where the criminal cases of some people close to the president have stalled or disappeared.
Prosecutors who objected to the administration’s interference were fired or fled, and one judge who complained that the president had meddled in a civil corruption case against Sophia Martelly, the first lady, died two days later.
“I would be very concerned of this interconnected web of nefarious characters,” said Robert Maguire, a Haiti scholar at George Washington University. “Martelly has empowered them to do what they do. He has established an environment of corruption, abuse of power and impunity.”
Disputed Election
Mr. Martelly was elected in 2011 after being placed in a runoff despite coming in third in a disputed election. International organizations, with an assist from Washington, helped Mr. Martelly by documenting his opponents’ widespread voter fraud.
Washington’s role in the election and the American ambassador’s warm relationship with him since has hurt Mr. Martelly’s credibility at home, where the president is considered a member of the conservative elite, disconnected from the poor majority.
The National Human Rights Defense Network, a leading human rights organization in Haiti, has argued that the president and his cabinet were complicit in protecting drug traffickers in other cases.
The president was widely criticized for the handling of a 2013 drug-trafficking case involving Evinx Daniel, a prominent hotelier and Martelly campaign supporter who owns Dan’s Creek, a beachfront hotel the president is known to frequent.
Mr. Daniel told the authorities that he had found 23 packages of marijuana floating at sea and decided to bring them home. He called the president’s brother-in-law, Mr. Saint-Rémy, who called the United States Drug Enforcement Administration to pick up the load, the brother-in-law said.
A prosecutor, Jean Marie Salomon, doubted the story, suspecting that it was a ruse to cover up a drug deal that local residents had stumbled upon, and arrested Mr. Daniel on drug-trafficking charges. But the prosecutor was nervous, because he knew the hotelier had been active in the president’s campaign.
“He told me, ‘Commissioner, someone wants to talk to you,’” Mr. Salomon recalled in an interview. “He said, ‘The minister is on the phone.’”
Mr. Daniel was released the next day, and Mr. Salomon was suspended for abuse of power and later resigned. The prosecutor’s police bodyguard never showed up for work again, Mr. Salomon said. Mr. Salomon said he saw masked gunmen outside the courthouse just as investigators were calling him to discuss Mr. Daniel’s case.
Shortly after, Mr. Salomon said President Martelly went to Port Salut, about 140 miles west of the capital, and stayed at his friend’s hotel.
“It was not only a provocation from the president, but also a coded message,” Mr. Salomon said. “That day, I understood there was a bounty on me, and my days were numbered.”
Mr. Salomon called the United Nations for help and fled the country, but has since returned.
The hotelier disappeared three months after his release from jail and is widely presumed to be dead.
“Since Martelly arrived in office, state institutions have become weaker than before,” said Pierre Esperance, director of the National Human Rights Defense Network. “We have no rule of law in Haiti.”
H) In January 2017, the United States extradited one of the DEA’s most wanted – Guy Philippe. The New York Times reported:
Despite being a fugitive whose face was posted on the Drug Enforcement Administration’s website, Mr. Philippe had recently been elected to the Haitian Senate. In an October interview with The New York Times, he maintained that the Americans could find him if they wanted to, as he was in plain sight.
Let’s Recap Some of The Names
- Marc Antoine Acra
- Jean-Bertrand Aristide
- Laurent Lamothe
- Former President Michel Martelly
- Sophia Martelly (first lady)
- Olivier Martelly (son of Michel Martelly)
- Jean-Michel Moise (cousin of Jovenel Moise)
- Jovenel Moise (current President)
- Charles (aka Kiko) St. Remy (Michel Martelly’s brother-in-law)
- Former Lt. Colonel Serge Toussaint
Cocaine is The Name of The Game – How is it Transported?
THE PORTS:
Port Route #1: Colombia
Cocaine is being transported right out of Colombia’s ports. There is an interesting little story I would like to share regarding Colombia and its ties before I cover the ports. I will state the facts and you can decide if and how it all connects.
Many of you may not be aware of this, but did you know that the Clintons own a company called Acceso Boyacá (incorporated in Canada) with their buddy Frank Giustra under the guise of Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership that is located in Colombia? I would tell you the name of the town, however, they intentionally put an irregular address listing a non-existent street with two towns on their tax return, and neither Bloomberg or google can find this company. I say “intentional” because this was done with most of their other companies as well. Yes, they own multiple companies in other countries. In fact, Acceso Boyaca’s controlling entity is their other company called Fondo Acceso who’s parent company is Acceso Fund LLC. Starting to see the picture here? If you thought the Clinton Foundation was the key source to their nefarious acts, you would be mistaken, that’s just one piece of the pie. According to their website and tax returns Acceso Boyaca is a company dealing in fruits and vegetables. That’s cute. Known for raping and pillaging lands for minerals and gold, turned supporters of the earth providing people with healthy fruits and vegetables. Okay.
It gets better. They are so enthralled with their “business” over there that they decided to open a school in 2013 called Acceso Training Center in Cartagena Colombia in an area called Manga, where they claim to have helped 3,000 young Colombians learn skillsets in accounting, hospitality, ports and logistics. Wait, did someone say ports? I will come back to that.
When researching this school, it is nowhere to be found, with exception of the Clintons’ website itself. There are absolutely no write-ups about it with the exception of one I found that depicts the Clintons as Gods. It does not exist on google maps, though all other training schools in that area would appear to be on there. Personally, if I had big investors involved (keep reading), I would be damn sure the school had a google business listing just as the others in the area do. There is a photo of a ribbon cutting with Bill Clinton and Frank Giustra in front of an obscure building cropped out only to reflect several students standing behind them. Since there is no address, mapping, photos of the school, one must assume… why this must be it?! Continue reading