Leader of Haiti’s 400 Mawozo gang indicted in U.S.
MIAMI — At first blush, the oversized blue plastic barrels appeared to be shipments of simple household items like clothing, bottles of Gatorade and shoes for use in Haiti.
But a deeper search of the wrapped garbage bags would reveal something more sinister, and deadlier: AK-47 and M1A rifles, and ammunition capable of piercing armored police vehicles and dense concrete walls to take out an enemy a mile away.
On Wednesday, two South Florida residents, along with a Haitian national who lives in Orlando, were indicted in federal court, along with the leader of a notorious Haitian gang behind last year’s kidnapping of 17 American and Canadian missionaries. They are charged with criminal conspiracy to violate U.S. export laws by smuggling firearms and munitions to aid the gang 400 Mawozo in Haiti.
The indicted are Germine Joly (identified by U.S. authorities as Joly Germine) also known as “Yonyon,” 29, a Haitian national; Eliande Tunis, 43, a U.S. citizen, of Pompano Beach; Jocelyn Dor, 29, a Haitian citizen who had been residing in Orlando; and Walder St. Louis, 33, a Haitian citizen who had been residing in Miami. They are charged with conspiring to violate export control laws to defraud the U.S., violating export control laws , smuggling and laundering money.
According to the indictment unsealed Wednesday, the South Florida residents falsified Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms paperwork in order to purchase the firearms, which were later smuggled to Haiti in barrels. The transactions were done using the telephone messaging app WhatsApp in which Tunis, on calls with Joly, identified the best highpowered rifles and munition to get.
When a shipper complained that the barrels were heavy, Tunis, according to the criminal complaint in her arrest, replied that it was packed with rice.
While the three have pleaded not guilty and are being held pending trial, Joly has not yet entered a plea. During his first appearance Wednesday afternoon in federal court in Washington, D.C., before Magistrate Judge Robin M. Meriweather, he was ordered detained pending further court proceedings. He was assigned defense attorney Allen Orenberg who said the case is “complex.” The government was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen Seifert.
Joly had been a prisoner in Port-au-Prince’s National Penitentiary until he was picked up Tuesday by federal agents on an international warrant. As leader of the 400 Mawozo gang, he directed operations from prison using cellphones, the indictment says.
Joly’s indictment, along with his three co-defendants, offers a detailed look into the gun trade between South Florida and Haiti that is helping fuel the violence in the Caribbean nation.
Since Aug. 29, at least 39 civilians have died in the area east of Port-au-Prince, which is considered 400 Mawozo’s stronghold. The deaths are the results of a turf war between Joly’s gang and a rival armed group known as Chen Mechan, or Mean Dog. The clash risks plunging an already unstable and volatile Haiti deeper into a humanitarian crisis and cutting the capital off from the rest of the country.
The U.S. indictment claims that, from at least September through November 2021, Joly and his Florida-based co-defendants conspired to acquire and supply high-powered firearms and munitions to members of 400 Mawozo, which as far back as Jan. 12, 2020, was engaged in armed kidnappings for ransom of U.S. citizens in Haiti.
U.S. prosecutors have identified at least 17 shotguns, pistols and rifles, including a long-range Springfield Armory M1A rifle, that were purchased between September and October. During that time, the Florida trio also falsified ATF forms eight times to purchase the firearms in Miami, Orlando, Pompano Beach and Apopka, according to the indictment.
The ATF forms state that firearms may not be exported without proper authorization from the U.S. government and warns that the firearms cannot be transferred to anyone else. The form also warns that any person who transfers the weapons without proper authorization is subject to a fine of as much as $1 million and up to 20 years imprisonment.