US sentences Florida resident for smuggling guns to Haiti gang, embassy says

PORT-AU-PRINCE, (Reuters) - A U.S. court has sentenced a Florida resident to five years in prison for participating in a “sophisticated smuggling scheme” trafficking arms and ammunition to Haiti’s powerful 400 Mawozo gang, the U.S. embassy in Haiti said yesterday.

Jocelyn Dor, a 31-year-old Haitian citizen, had pleaded guilty last October to money laundering and violating U.S. export laws. The embassy said Dor had exported or attempted to export 24 firearms and hundreds of rounds of ammunition to the conflict-ravaged Caribbean nation.

According to the statement, Dor acted as a “straw purchaser” for the gang, and had in late 2021 bought 10 semiautomatic high-power rifles at gun shops around the Orlando area, including a Barrett .50-caliber rifle, primarily used by militaries.

He was transferred thousands of U.S. dollars to pay for them, it added.

Dor was the target of an FBI manhunt through the Midwest before turning himself in and has been in custody since, the embassy said. Dor had initially been charged in 2022 alongside top 400 Mawozo operator Joly Germine and his partner Eliande Tunis for gun smuggling and money laundering.

Germine and Tunis are set to be sentenced in May.

400 Mawozo won international notoriety after the 2021 kidnapping of 17 U.S. and Canadian missionaries, for which they asked for a ransom of $1 million per person, and are believed to be responsible for many collective kidnappings in Haiti.

Its leader, Wilson Joseph, is one of five Haitians sanctioned by the United Nations and has a $1 million bounty on his head from the FBI.

The sentencing comes after U.S. officials pledged to boost efforts to stem the trafficking of firearms to Haiti, after multiple U.N. reports pointed to the U.S. as the main source of illicit firearms held by gangs.

Kenya has offered to lead a U.N.ratified force requested by Haiti’s unelected government in 2022 to help under-resourced Haitian police fight gangs, which are now estimated to control most of the capital Port-auPrince.