US HOMELAND SECURITY INVESTIGATIONS IN HAITI
HSI expands permanent presence in Haiti to combat transnational crime, help bring security through ongoing partnership
PORT-AU-PRINCE — On Thursday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) officially opened a permanent HSI office at the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, expanding HSI’s international presence around the world.
The permanent positions in Haiti are intended to further strengthen country relations to combat gang related crimes, bring criminals to justice, and protect public safety.
HSI Executive Associate Director (EAD) Steve Francis joined Charge d’Affairs Kenneth Merten and Deputy Chief of Mission Nicole Theriot for a ribbon cutting ceremony to open the new office.
HSI Port-au-Prince will develop and foster relationships with host government law enforcement partners to exchange information, coordinate, and support investigations, and facilitate enforcement actions and prosecutions to deter the ability of transnational criminal organizations and gangs to smuggle contraband with a nexus to Haiti and the United States. HSI Port-au-Prince will work with its counterparts in Haiti to identify and target sources of supply and illuminate and disrupt transportation and smuggling routes.
HSI Port-au-Prince has begun working towards the establishment of a Transnational Criminal Investigative Unit in Haiti by building relationships with the host country law enforcement and customs organizations. HSI’s TCIUs comprise trained and vetted foreign law enforcement officials who work closely alongside HSI to investigate and prosecute individuals involved in transnational criminal activity. These units facilitate information exchange and rapid bilateral investigation of many of the violations of law within HSI’s investigative purview.
“For more than 15 years, HSI has worked alongside international law enforcement agencies around the world, to investigate and prosecute individuals involved in transnational criminal activity,” said Francis. “As partners, and most importantly allies, we are united in our resolve to support Haiti as they seek ways to prevent further gang violence and restore safety for Haitian citizens.”
In the last year, HSI has deployed multiple special agents to Haiti in support of Operation CITADEL. Operation CITADEL acts as a force multiplier and is designed to strengthen law enforcement, customs, and immigration enforcement capabilities of host nations, while supporting HSI investigations. Operation CITADEL focuses on identifying and disrupting transnational criminal organizations by targeting the mechanisms used to move migrants, illicit funds, and contraband throughout the Caribbean and South and Central America.
In 2019, HSI established the Caribbean Firearms Initiative (CFI) to counter firearms trafficking in the region. Through CFI, HSI works with host nation partners to identify unknown networks and facilitators involved in U.S.-origin firearms smuggling and its associated violence. The CFI has and will continue to facilitate operational support to HSI domestic offices and actively seek opportunities for international cooperation when firearms are identified and seized in route to the Caribbean.
HSI’s International Operations Division develops and supports investigations, initiatives, and operations conducted or supported by HSI attaché offices and builds relationships with foreign law enforcement partners to support domestic cases, combat transnational criminal organizations, and prevent terrorist activities. While doing this, International Operations protects the nation’s borders by conducting international law enforcement operations and partnering with foreign and domestic counterparts to detect, deter, and dismantle transnational criminal organizations that threaten the U.S. and host nation’s national security.
In FY21, HSI arrested 34,974 criminals and seized more than $973 million in criminally derived currency, dealing a significant blow to the bad actors seeking to profit from their crimes.
“HSI’s investigative breadth, deep technical experience, and operational agility enables us to be a helpful and supportive partner in preventing gang related crime and weapons smuggling within the Caribbean region,” said Francis.
HSI is a directorate of ICE and the principal investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), responsible for investigating transnational crime and threats, specifically those criminal organizations that exploit the global infrastructure through which international trade, travel, and finance move.
HSI’s workforce of over 10,400 employees consists of more than 7,100 special agents assigned to 220 cities throughout the United States, and 80 overseas locations in 53 countries. HSI’s international presence represents DHS’s largest investigative law enforcement presence abroad and one of the largest international footprints in U.S. law enforcement.
A convicted Haitian drug trafficker is brought to U.S. to face new narcotics charges
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Updated April 07, 2022
Jean Eliobert Jasme, in handcuffs, stands in the middle of this photo with DEA and Haitian National Police officers in Port-au-Prince Thursday before his transfer to the United States on new cocaine smuggling charges. Haiti social media
A convicted Haitian cocaine smuggler who had assisted a U.S. investigation of drug trafficking in the administration of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has been brought once again to the United States to face new narcotics charges.
This time, Jean Eliobert Jasme, who was taken into custody Thursday, is facing narcotics charges in federal court in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He’s accused of conspiring with two Haitian police officers to smuggle cocaine from Colombia through Haiti, the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas into the United States.
Over his lifetime, Jasme, 59, has gained a notorious reputation in the U.S. war on drugs.
Jasme was expelled by Aristide in 2003, the year before the president’s ouster. The following year, Jasme pleaded guilty in Miami federal court to two counts of conspiring to import cocaine into the United States, following charges in separate indictments out of Miami and Brooklyn.
Calling Jasme “one of the top-level traffickers in Haiti,” a federal prosecutor linked him to Colombian suppliers, Haitian distributors and several boatloads of cocaine seized on the Miami River in 2000. The prosecutor also tied him to cocaine seized at Miami International Airport.
Although reluctant at first to assist U.S. authorities, Jasme later became a central witness in the federal government’s mission to slow the flow of cocaine from Colombia via Haiti to South Florida. Jasme contributed to at least 17 prosecutions of Haitian government officials, senior police officers and other cocaine smugglers — with all but one ending in convictions.
He was rewarded by prosecutors for his cooperation in 2009 when a federal judge cut his 20-year prison sentence in half.
But Jasme did not leave the drug trade, according to new charges filed by federal prosecutors in Milwaukee.
Jasme was arrested by Haitian National Police on Oct. 28, 2020, with 83 kilograms of cocaine in Gressier, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. He was jailed and later released.
Then last month, Jasme, also known as “Eddy One,” was arrested in a sting operation in Petionville by the Haitian National Police’s anti-drug trafficking unit. His arrest was considered significant in light of his high-level ties to previous Haitian government officials over the years and his stature in the Colombian cocaine trafficking trade.
Jasme’s extradition was signed off by Haiti’s justice minister, the Miami Herald confirmed. Two Haitian police officers also charged in his indictment — Ysa Dieudonne and Alex Mompremier — face extradition to the United States as well. Federal court records suggest the officers are fugitives.
The signed paperwork paved the way for Jasme’s transfer to the United States on Thursday. Jasme was turned over to the Drug Enforcement Administration. A photo circulating on social media showed him smiling on the tarmac alongside DEA agents.
It remains to be seen whether Jasme will reprise his role as a federal informant.
More than a decade ago, prosecutors lauded Jasme for providing incriminating information on a variety of trafficking suspects with ties to the Aristide government, but they stopped short of naming the former president as one of them.
At the time, however, Jasme’s attorney, Paul Petruzzi, said that his client “cooperated” against the former president, who was forced from power and fled to South Africa in February 2004. He later returned to Haiti.
”It’s no secret that Jean-Bertrand Aristide has been under investigation for drug trafficking and money laundering,” Petruzzi said in 2009.
But federal authorities were never able to prove allegations that Aristide was paid millions of dollars by Haitian traffickers to allow them to use the country as a hub for shipping Colombian cocaine to the United States. Aristide, through his attorney in Miami, always denied any wrongdoing.
This story was originally published April 7, 2022 6:04 PM.
Haitian government honors Dr. Paul Farmer on World Health Day
BY THE HAITIAN TIMES APR. 08, 2022
The Haitian TimesJan. 29, 2020
Didi B. Farmer (middle) posing for a picture with a plaque given in honor of her late husband Dr. Paul Farmer on World Health Day on April 7, 2022; Acting Prime Minister Ariel Henry stands on Farmer's right. Photo via Ariel Henry's Twitter account
PORT-AU-PRINCE — Acting Prime Minister Ariel Henry honored Dr. Paul Farmeron World Health Day to recognize the late medical anthropologist and infectious disease specialist’s impact on Haiti.
“This shows our gratitude to this eminent doctor whose charitable works continue to benefit thousands of our compatriots,” Henry tweeted after giving a plaque to Didi B. Farmer, the doctor’s widow.
Farmer helped found Partners in Health / Zanmi Lasante hospital, the country’s largest healthcare provider outside of the Haitian government located in Cange, a remote village in Mirebalais. He was known for his decades of extensive work in Haiti dating back to the 1980s when he was a medical student at Harvard.
Farmer died of a sudden cardiac event in his sleep in Rwanda Feb. 21.World Health Day has been celebrated annually on April 7th by the World’s Health Organization (WHO) since 1948. This year’s theme is “our planet, our health.” This year WHO will focus on urgent actions needed to keep humans and the planet healthy and foster a movement to create societies focused on well-being, the organization said on its website.
