Haiti National Police officer jailed in U.S. on drug charges

A Haiti National Police officer who is accused of conspiring with one of the country’s leading cocaine traffickers and was brought to the U.S. on international narcotics charges is currently jailed in Wisconsin.

Alex Mompremier was flown out of the Port-auPrince on Monday by U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents and had an initial court appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Nancy Joseph in Milwaukee the following day. Joseph ordered Mompremier

temporarily detained and scheduled his detention hearing for Friday.

In September a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Wisconsin indicted Mompremier on charges of international drug trafficking and carrying firearms during and in relation to drug trafficking. Also indicted with him: Jean Eliobert Jasme, a high-profile drug trafficker who is also known as “ED1,” “Eddy One,” and “Tío Loco.”

Once referred to by federal prosecutors as “one of the top-level traffickers in Haiti,” Jasme was expelled from Haiti in April to the United States, where he had previously been sentenced to 20 years in prison on cocaine smuggling charges. A federal judge cut his sentence in half as reward for assisting U.S. investigators looking into drug trafficking in the administration of former Haiti President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

According to Mompremier’s indictment, he conspired with Jasme and others to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine intended to be imported into the United States several times in 2020. Both Mompremier and Jasme, along with another police officer, were arrested on Oct. 28, 2020, with 83 kilograms of cocaine in Gressier, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. They were jailed but later released.

During his arraignment last month in Milwaukee, Jasme, 60, was ordered detained pending trial.