Haitian police say gang member accused of kidnapping Americans was extradited to US

PORT-AU-PRINCE (AP) — Haitian law enforcement authorities said a man belonging to a violent gang accused of kidnapping four U.S. citizens has been extradited to the U.S.

Haiti’s National Police said Tuesday that Jhon Peter Fleronvil is affiliated with the gang known as “Kokorat San Ras,” roughly translated to mean “Cohorts of No Race.”

Fleronvil was extradited on Monday and faces charges of abducting four U.S. citizens in Haiti’s central Artibonite region in July 2022, police said.

Fleronvil was arrested in September in the northern coastal town of Fort Liberte as he tried to flee to the nearby border with the Dominican Republic, authorities said.

According to a recent U.N. report, “Kokorat San Ras, despite its limited numbers, is also a very brutal gang” that operates in the Artibonite region. Its roughly 20 members have “committed acts of extreme violence, forcing people to abandon large areas of cropland and threatening agricultural production.”

The gang has been accused of murder, robbery, rape, kidnapping and the hijacking of trucks and goods, according to the report.

Last year, the leader of another Haitian gang was extradited to the U.S. and charged in connection with the October 2021 kidnapping of 16 U.S. missionaries. Germine Joly, 29, who is also known as “Yonyon,” is accused of leading the 400 Mawozo gang. The name roughly translates to “400 Simpletons.”