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WASHINGTON —U.S. federal agents arrested four Florida men on Tuesday in connection with the July 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise, bringing to 11 the number of defendants in the United States facing charges over the plot.
Following the arrests, a federal grand jury in Florida returned a superseding indictment charging all 11 with a variety of crimes related to the brazen killing of Moise in his residence in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince on July 7, 2021.
Moise's wife was shot multiple times during the attack but survived.
The assassination was carried out by former Colombian soldiers allegedly recruited by a group of Haitians and Haitian Americans in south Florida seeking to depose Moise.
Haitian authorities have made dozens of arrests in the case, but their prosecution has reportedly stalled in Haiti amid death threats to local judges. Last month, Haitian authorities transferred four suspects to the U.S. for prosecution.
The four men arrested Tuesday were identified as Arcángel Pretel Ortiz, a Colombian national and U.S. permanent resident of Miami; Antonio Intriago, a Venezuelan businessman and U.S. permanent resident of Miami; Walter Veintemilla, a U.S. citizen originally from Ecuador living in Weston, Florida; and Frederick Bergmann, a U.S. citizen of Tampa.
The arrests were announced by top law enforcement officials at a press conference in Miami.
Lawyers for the four suspects, who were expected to make their initial court appearances on Tuesday, could not be reached immediately for comment.
Much of plot planned in Florida
According to court documents, from at least February 2021 to July 2021, South Florida, which has a large Haitian American community, served as "a central location for planning and financing the plot" to oust Moise and replace him with "someone who would serve the co-conspirators' political goals and financial interests."
Markenzy Lapointe, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, said "much of the planning, funding and direction" of the plot took place in south Florida.
Three kinds of suspects
The four men arrested on Tuesday, Lapointe said, were the planners, organizers and financiers of the plot.
Ortiz and Intriago, the owners of a South Florida security company called the Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU), are accused of recruiting a group of 20 former Colombian soldiers to carry out the assassination.
Veintemilla and his company allegedly agreed to help "finance the coup d'etat," extending a $175,000 line of credit to CTU and sending money to other plotters in Haiti to purchase ammunition, according to court documents.
Initially, the conspirators planned to depose Moise and replace him with a Haitian American dual citizen and aspiring politician named Christian Sanon.
The alleged plan was that once Sanon became president, "he would award lucrative contracts to CTU for infrastructure projects in Haiti, the provision of surety forces, and the provision of military-type equipment to a Sanon-led Haitian government," Lapointe said.
Sanon, a self-described doctor with presidential ambitions, was among the four men transferred to the U.S. last month.
If convicted, the 11 defendants, except Bergmann and Sanon, face life in prison. Bergmann and Sanon face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
The charges announced on Tuesday arise from U.S. laws that prohibit conspiracies to kill or kidnap persons abroad and to provide material support to such efforts, said Matt Olsen, assistant attorney general for national security.
"This assassination was carried out in Port-au-Prince, but as alleged in the complaint, aspects of this deadly plot were advanced inside the United States by co-conspirators and facilitators located here," Olsen said at the press conference.
"Let me be very clear: The United States will not tolerate those who would plot from our soil to carry out acts of violence abroad, just as we will not tolerate those outside the U.S. who would plot to conduct violence in this country," Olsen said.