WASHINGTON — Haiti’s most notorious gang leader has been indicted by a federal jury in Washington, D.C., after which the FBI announced a $5 million bounty for information leading to his capture.
Jimmy Chérizier, aka “Barbecue” 48, is one of the leaders of the powerful Viv Ansanm gang coalition. Last year, the alliance was responsible for the deaths of more than 5,600 people, and already this year the number is beyond 3,000, the United Nations has said.
Chérizier’s name was revealed Tuesday after federal authorities unsealed an indictment in federal court in Washington D.C. charging him and Bazile Richardson, 48, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Fayetteville, N.C., with leading a conspiracy to transfer money from the U.S. to Chérizier to fund his gang activities in Haiti in violation of the U.S. sanctions imposed on Chérizier. The case is the first-ever prosecution for alleged violations of Global Magnitsky Act sanctions.
The Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act was enacted in 2016 and empowers the president of the United States to impose economic sanctions on foreigners who have engaged in human rights violations. Under the act, it is unlawful for U.S. citizens or people located in the U.S. to engage in any transaction involving the property or interests in property of a sanctioned individual.
A former Haiti National Police officer, Chérizier was sanctioned in December 2020 by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control for his role in leading armed groups in coordinated, brutal attacks in Port-au-Prince, including a 2018 massacre in the capital’s La Saline working class neighborhood. Chérizier was still an active cop at the time of the La Saline attack, which marked his shift to violent gang leader, and resulted in at least 71 people being killed, over 400 houses destroyed and at least seven women raped. In 2022, Chérizier he was added to a global terrorist list by the United Nations following other harrowing incidents of human rights abuses in Haiti as his G9 and Family gang fought for control over territory before helping to form Viv Ansanm.
The reward by the FBI is the highest for a gang leader in Haiti. Gang leader Vitel’homme Innocent has a $2 million FBI bounty for alleged kidnappings. Like Chérizier, Innocent, who controls the area around the U.S. Embassy, is a leader of Viv Ansanm.
The $5 million reward raises the stakes in the country’s effort to curb the violence by powerful criminal groups that have taken the capital, Port-au-Prince, to the verge of collapse. For months, an anti-gang task force using weaponized drones under the supervision of private military contractors have been trying to take down high value targets.
“Violent actors like Chérizier, and the rest of his criminal associates must understand there is no safe haven for them and the people like them that traffic violence in our communities,” said Darren Cox, the FBI’s acting assistant director for the Criminal Investigative Division. “The FBI and our partners will continue to leverage all of the resources that are available and the expertise that we have to bring these people to justice.”
Transnational crime by foreign terrorist organizations threatens the safety and security of the U.S., he said, and tackling these networks means addressing every link in the chain and every cell, abroad and in the U.S. Cox said the FBI’s office in Miami has been working to track down Chérizier, who has an active presence on social media platforms, and his Viv Ansanm cohorts and associates in the U.S.
“We know someone has information that can help end this violence, and we want them to come forward and know that they are safe in doing so,” Cox said. “We urge anybody with information related to Chérizier, and any of his criminal network, to contact the FBI tips line or our local field office.” The indictment is the result of a lengthy investigation into the gang leader’s criminal activities. The investigation focused on Chérizier’s illicit activities including identifying his procurement of firearms and trafficking networks, fundraising operations and the movement and use of dollars in violation of U.S. sanctions.
“These criminal groups utilize complex strategies to acquire American weapons systems, sensitive technology, financial assets and other resources to commit crimes across the globe endangering Americans both domestically and abroad,” said Ivan Arvelo, assistant director of Homeland Security Investigations.
The case, he said, has been a great example of law enforcement agencies working together to leverage each other’s strengths and unique authorities in pursuit of a common goal. In addition to the HSI and the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the State Department, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., and the Department of Justice’s National Security Division were involved.
Designated as foreign and terrorists earlier this year, Haiti’s armed gangs have managed to outgunned both the country’s beleaguered police force and an ill-equipped Kenya-led multinational security force, and presently control 90% of the capital while also quickly expanding to other regions. Chérizier has remained an active figure in the effort, fashioning himself as a revolutionary leader while blocking movement around the capital and helping to fuel a humanitarian crisis that has nearly 6 million Haitians going hungry and 1.3 million forced from their homes.
“His actions to fund the oppression and slaughter of Haitians, including firearm procurement and trafficking networks, fundraising activities, movement and usage of U.S. dollars, and violations of sanctions, are unconscionable — but today marks a step towards accountability,” said acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd M. Lyons.
The indictment claims Chérizier and Richardson, a trucker who described himself as a childhood friend of the warlord, led a wide-ranging conspiracy with others in the U.S., Haiti, and elsewhere to raise funds for Chérizier’s gang activities. In particular, the indictment says, the duo directly solicited money transfers from members of the Haitian diaspora in the U.S. Funds were sent to intermediaries in Haiti for Chérizier’s benefit. Chérizier, used these funds to pay salaries to the members of his gang and to buy weapons from illicit firearms dealers in Haiti, U.S. officials said.
Last month, while in Houston, Richardson was arrested by the FBI’s Houston office. He was a named co-conspirator in the indictment that also lists seven other unnamed individuals including two naturalized U.S. citizens from Haiti who live in New York and Massachusetts, and a Haitian national who lives in North Carolina. The others all reside in Haiti.
By JACQUELINE CHARLES/Miami Herald
Jacqueline Charles has reported on Haiti and the English-speaking Caribbean for the Miami Herald for over a decade. A Pulitzer Prize finalist for her coverage of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, she was awarded a 2018 Maria Moors Cabot Prize — the most prestigious award for coverage of the Americas.