U.S. arrests three Americans in Haiti leader’s assassination

Federal agents arrested four men whom they accused of playing key roles in the assassination of Haiti’s former president, U.S. prosecutors said Tuesday, the latest step in an investigation that has implicated several American citizens.

President Jovenel Moïse, 53, died after being shot 12 times in 2021 when a team of Spanish-speaking commandos stormed his home outside the Haitian capital in July 2021. Prosecutors say the plot to overthrow and ultimately kill him was hatched in South Florida by business people who hoped to reap lucrative contracts under a new administration.

Eleven people are in U.S. custody and more than a dozen in Haiti for suspected ties to the assassination.

Among those detained and indicted by a federal grand jury in South Florida on Tuesday were Antonio Intriago, a Venezuelan American, and Arcángel Pretel Ortiz, a Colombian living in the United States, the owners of a U.S. security company who prosecutors say organized the plot to murder the former Haitian leader.

At the time of the assassination, Pretel was an FBI informant, but the agency terminated its relationship with him after the killing, according to federal court documents. Pretel had used his relationship with the agency to arrange a meeting between the conspirators and federal agents, on the pretext that he had information about terrorism, the court records stated.

At least three other suspects in the case were former informants for the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Pretel and Intriago’s company, CTU Security, based in Doral, Fla., recruited 20 Colombians with military training who helped invade Moïse’s home. Lawyers for Intriago previously admitted that CTU recruited the men.

The two other men arrested were Walter Veintemilla, a financier living in Florida, and Frederick Bergmann, who is accused of helping to finance the operation and is based in Tampa, Fla.; both are American citizens.