4 days ago
U.S. charges Haiti gang leader ‘Barbecue' with evading sanctions
A federal grand jury has indicted Jimmy 'Barbecue' Chérizier, the leader of a powerful coalition of gangs that has paralyzed and terrorized Haiti, on charges of conspiring with people in the United States and Haiti to evade U.S. sanctions, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said Tuesday.
The State Department, meanwhile, is offering a $5 million reward for information leading to Chérizier's arrest or conviction. The self-styled revolutionary is believed to be in Port-au-Prince.
Chérizier, who posts frequently to social media and has given interviews to The Washington Post and other international news outlets, is perhaps the most notorious of Haiti's warlords. A former officer with the Haitian National Police, he has been accused of perpetrating some of the country's worst massacres, including a 2018 attack in the La Saline neighborhood of Port-au-Prince that left at least 70 people dead.
Chérizier, 48, has for years led the G9 Family and Allies, a gang known for killings, mass kidnappings, sexual violence and extortion. In 2023, he united the G9 with enemy gangs to form Viv Anasnm, a coalition that has launched waves of coordinated attacks against government buildings, prisons and critical infrastructure in a campaign to topple Haiti's transitional government.
The U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Chérizier in 2020. The State Department this year designated Viv Ansanm and Haiti's Gran Grif gang foreign terrorist organizations, saying that their 'ultimate goal is creating a gang-controlled state where illicit trafficking and other criminal activities operate freely and terrorize Haitian citizens.'
Also indicted is Bazile Richardson, 48, a naturalized U.S. citizen, on charges of leading a conspiracy to transfer funds from the United States to Chérizier to fund his gang activities in Haiti in violation of the sanctions. Richardson was arrested on July 23 in Pasadena, Texas, and was expected to make his initial court appearance today in the District of Columbia.
Gangs have long had a presence in Haiti, but their influence has grown since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse and the subsequent collapse of the rule of law. The groups, armed mostly with weapons smuggled in from the United States, control 90 percent of the capital, according to U.N. estimates, and are pushing into the countryside. In the year since an international police force deployed in the country, the gangs' footprint has grown.
U.S. authorities in recent years have charged several Haitian gang leaders with hostage taking and other crimes and offered millions of dollars for information leading to their capture. But Haiti's foremost gang leaders remain at large in the country, even as authorities there use armed drones to target their strongholds.
Jeremy Roebuck in Washington contributed to this report.
