The leader of one of Haiti’s most powerful gangs was extradited to the United States on Tuesday, the Haitian police said, while the territorial expansion of heavily armed criminals has put the capital Port-au-Prince under siege.
The leader of the “400 Mawozo” gang, Germin Jolie, also known as “Yion”, was airlifted by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to Washington, where authorities issued an international arrest warrant for his arrest.
🚨La Coordination of Press and Public Relations, with the only audiovisual production unit “Allô la Police”, present to the public the extradition to the état-Unis de Germine Joly alias “Yonyon, Chief of gangs of” 400 Mawozo “.
–#pnhhaiti pic.twitter.com/dUOzJwZWjc– PNH (@pnh_officiel) May 3, 2022
He has been held in Port-au-Prince prison since 2015 and is being prosecuted by the US authorities for “importing weapons of war” and “kidnapping for ransom of American citizens”, he clarified in a press release published by the Haitian police.
The gang – which he continued to lead through his cell – occupied the international media when he abducted a group of 17 US and Canadian missionaries and their relatives, including five children, last fall.
On Friday, a Dominican diplomat was abducted by a gang demanding $ 500,000 ransom for his release, according to media reports from the neighboring country of Haiti.
The territories controlled by the “400 Mawozo” gang in recent years have a high strategic value: through them passes the only road to the north, which also connects the Haitian capital with the Dominican Republic.
For the past ten days, clashes between the “400 Mawozo” and another gang have been paralyzing neighborhoods in the northern part of Port-au-Prince.
Hundreds of families fled their homes in fear and at least 20 civilians were killed, according to the Haitian Civil Protection report as of last Thursday, which is neither complete nor final.
Since June 2021, authorities have also lost control of part of the only road connecting the capital to the southern half of the country: for two kilometers, the highway is in the hands of criminals.
The gangrene of gang violence in Haiti has spread even further since the assassination of President Jouvenel Moyes last July by a group of mercenaries. The Haitian police, often faced with dramatic overpopulation of criminals, are unable to control the situation.
The security crisis in Haiti is increasing the flow of migrants to the United States. Many Haitians leave, initially for the Bahamas, in overcrowded, often anything but sailing boats.
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