Latest news with #Lazarre
Euronews
13-03-2025
- Politics
- Euronews
Haiti police vow to ramp up fight against gangs after fresh attacks in the capital
More than 1 million people have been displaced by the violence, with gangs in control 85% of Port-au-Prince, according to a UN human rights expert. ADVERTISEMENT Police in Haiti have vowed to ramp up the fight against escalating gang violence after fresh attacks in the capital this week, which forced dozens of families to flee their homes. Authorities evacuated students at a school in western Port-au-Prince following heavy gunfire in the area near the renowned Oloffson Hotel. Meanwhile, posts circulated on social media about a group of priests trapped inside a church in the capital's Carrefour-Feuilles neighbourhood, which was attacked by the Viv Ansanm gang coalition late on Tuesday. "They're trying to take more areas, but police are there, making sure that doesn't happen," Lionel Lazarre, deputy spokesman for Haiti's national police, told a press conference on Wednesday. Police have new plans to fight the gangs that already control 85% of Haiti's capital, according to Lazarre, who declined to provide further details due to safety reasons. Lazarre said police recently seized 10,000 bullets, weapons and drugs from a minibus in the town of Mirebalais, northeast of the Port-au-Prince. Two of the four people carrying the ammunition were lynched by a mob on Sunday, while the others escaped, he added. The latest attacks come just days after William O'Neill, the UN's human rights expert on Haiti, visited the Caribbean country and said gang violence was more dire than ever. "These violent criminal groups continue to extend and consolidate their hold even beyond the capital," he said. "They kill, rape, terrorise, set fire to homes, orphanages, schools, hospitals, places of worship." O'Neill said more than 1 million people have been displaced, with nowhere to go. In makeshift camps, he said, hunger and sexual violence are widespread and "for many, it's a matter of survival". He urged Haitian authorities to beef up the police force — which numbers 9,000 to 10,000 in a country of 11 million people — compared with about 50,000 in the neighbouring Dominican Republic, which has a similar population. O'Neill also called for a reinforcement of the Kenya-led multinational force, which started arriving in June and numbers about 1,000 police. He said a well-equipped force of 2,500 "could have an enormous impact on controlling, dismantling, overpowering the gangs". On Tuesday, the US extended its ban on flights to Haiti's capital until 8 September because of the gang violence. The announcement by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) extends a ban on US flights to Port-au-Prince that began in November after gangs opened fire on three commercial planes. The initial ban was set to expire on Wednesday.
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Yahoo
Ex-fraud investigator for NYC Dept. of Homeless Services gets 27 months for COVID scam
A former fraud investigator for the New York City Department of Homeless Services will spend 27 months in prison for stealing and selling homeless people's personal information during the COVID pandemic. Brooklyn resident Olabanji Otufale, 41, accessed the names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers and photos of city homeless people, then sold that information to Marc Lazarre, an identity thief who used their IDs to apply for COVID unemployment relief. A Brooklyn Federal Court judge sentenced Otufale on Wednesday. The victims had given the city their names and info to apply for social services like beds in homeless shelter and food stamps. In October 2020, Otufale accessed a DHS database, took photos of the ID info he saw, and texted those pics to Lazarre. Lazarre, 39, of New Jersey, then tried to file for unemployment insurance in the victims' names, but he wasn't always successful — some of his marks had already filed for unemployment, according to court filings. In fact, he only managed to score a measly $182 in pilfered benefits, according to prosecutors. When his claims got rejected, he asked Otufale for new names, telling him in one text, 'smfh [shaking my f—ing head] told you these bums b on it.' Otufale and Lazarre were taking advantage of the federal CARES act, an economic stimulus package set up in the early days of the pandemic that provided more than $2 trillion in emergency COVID relief. 'The defendant abused his position of trust as a fraud investigator to access and steal vulnerable homeless victims' personal identifying information for his personal benefit,' U.S. Attorney John J. Durham said. Otufale and Lazarre pleaded guilty in Brooklyn Federal Court to wire fraud conspiracy and aggravated identity theft in July, the same day jury selection was supposed to start in their trial. Lazarre has a history of identity theft and forgery convictions dating back to 2015, and at one point he took out a lease in a dead person's name, according to the feds. He's slated to be sentenced in March.
