Three Haitian Nationals and One U.S. Citizen Charged with Firearms Trafficking in Support of 400 Mawozo Gang in Haiti | USAO-DC

            WASHINGTON – An indictment was unsealed now charging 4 defendants with taking part in a legal conspiracy to violate U.S. export regulations by smuggling firearms and munitions to Haiti. 

            The indictment expenses Joly Germine, also acknowledged as “Yonyon,” 29, a Haitian national Eliande Tunis, 43, a U.S. citizen, of Pompano Seashore, Florida Jocelyn Dor, 29, a Haitian citizen who experienced been residing in Orlando, Florida, and Walder St. Louis, 33, a Haitian citizen who had been residing in Miami. They are charged with conspiring to violate export command rules and to defraud the United States, violating export regulate laws, smuggling, and laundering income.

            Matthew M. Graves, U.S. Lawyer for the District of Columbia, and George Piro, Particular Agent in Demand of the FBI Miami Discipline Office produced the announcement these days.

            Tunis, Dor, and St. Louis had been apprehended in Florida in Oct and November 2021. They pleaded not guilty and are staying detained pending demo.  The indictment was returned by a grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Nov. 30, 2021. On May well 3, 2022, the Haitian governing administration transferred Germine into United States custody on the basis of the District of Columbia arrest warrant. Germine appeared this afternoon right before Justice of the peace Judge Robin M. Meriweather and was ordered detained pending additional court proceedings.

            The indictment alleges that, from at least September through November 2021, Germine, Tunis, Dor, and St. Louis conspired to receive and source firearms and munitions to associates of the 400 Mawozo gang in Haiti.  As alleged in the indictment, 400 Mawozo is a Haitian gang and felony corporation that operated in the Croix-des-Bouquets space to the east of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. From at least on or about Jan. 12, 2020, 400 Mawozo was engaged in armed kidnappings of U.S. citizens in Haiti for ransom.

            Germine, who has been incarcerated in Haiti considering that 2018, serves as a chief of 400 Mawozo and directed functions from jail employing unmonitored mobile telephones, the indictment alleges.  According to the indictment, Tunis, Dor, and St. Louis received from Germine specifications for weapons and ammunition that Germine and other gang users required sent to Haiti.  Tunis, Dor, and St. Louis, all of whom resided in Florida, acquired a variety of firearms at Florida gun outlets, such as rifles, pistols, and handguns, although falsely stating that they ended up the “actual buyers” of the firearms.  Tunis, Dor, and St. Louis then smuggled the firearms and ammunition to Haiti, concealing them in shipping and delivery containers, the indictment alleges. The indictment also outlines the defendants’ use of the U.S. fiscal process to aid the illegal firearm purchases.

            The 400 Mawozo gang claimed obligation for kidnapping 16 U.S. citizens, which include 5 young children, and one particular Canadian citizen who have been component of a missionary corporation traveling to an orphanage in Port au Prince, Haiti, in the slide of 2021.  The kidnapping of the U.S. citizens remains beneath investigation and no expenses have been submitted for individuals crimes.

            The costs in the indictment are just allegations, and each defendant is presumed innocent unless of course and until verified guilty beyond a sensible doubt in a court docket of regulation.  If convicted of any offense, a defendant’s sentence will be established by the court based mostly on the advisory Sentencing Pointers and other statutory variables.

            The scenario is becoming investigated by the FBI’s Miami Subject Place of work. Important support was delivered by the Haitian Countrywide Law enforcement. The scenario is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Lawyer Karen P. Seifert, with help from Paralegal Specialist Jorge Casillas and Exclusive Assistant U.S. Legal professional Hunter Deeley, of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.