PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The commander in command of guarding the Haitian president’s house rapidly turned a suspect within the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse final month when his safety crew inexplicably melted away, enabling hit males to enter the residence with little resistance and kill the president in his personal bed room.
However present and former officers say that the commander, Dimitri Hérard, was already a suspect in a separate case that the USA Drug Enforcement Administration has pursued for years: the disappearance of a whole lot, if not hundreds, of kilos of cocaine and heroin that had been whisked away by corrupt officers solely hours earlier than regulation enforcement brokers confirmed as much as seize them.
Now, some worldwide officers helping with the investigation into the president’s assassination say they’re inspecting whether or not these prison networks assist clarify the killing. Haitian officers, together with the nation’s prime minister, have acknowledged that the official rationalization offered within the days after the assassination — that Mr. Moïse was gunned down in an elaborate plot to grab political workplace — doesn’t totally add up, and that the true motive behind the homicide has not been uncovered.
Haiti is a serious transit level for medication heading to the USA, and American and United Nations officers say the commerce prospers via an array of politicians, businesspeople and members of regulation enforcement who abuse their energy. Now, present and former officers say that Mr. Hérard has lengthy been a focus of the investigation into one of many largest drug trafficking instances the D.E.A. has ever pursued in Haiti.
“The corruption goes as much as the highest ranges,” stated Keith McNichols, a former D.E.A. agent who was stationed in Haiti and led the company’s investigation into the lacking drug cargo. “Justice is elusive.”
The sprawling drug case not solely includes Mr. Hérard, but additionally judges and the brother-in-law of a former Haitian president. Officers say the staggering amount of medication spirited away by officers illustrates the extent to which Haiti has turn into a narco-state — with Haitian politicians, members of the judiciary and even American officers within the D.E.A. enabling corruption for years.
When a Panamanian-flagged cargo ship referred to as the MV Manzanares docked at a privately owned seaport in Haiti’s capital in April 2015, officers say that longshoremen started offloading what they thought had been luggage filled with sugar — till one ripped open, revealing the precious, illicit items inside.
Fights broke out among the many longshoremen as they stole what they might of the large stash of cocaine and heroin, officers say. Safety guards fired into the air to cease the looting, with the ruckus alerting Mr. McNichols and the Haitian anti-narcotics police to the chaos unfolding on the port.
However earlier than they might get there, two Jeeps sped as much as the dock. Males in presidential guard and different police uniforms emerged, and as an alternative of constructing arrests, they furiously grabbed luggage of cocaine and heroin, throwing hundreds into their autos earlier than dashing away, witnesses and officers say.
Shouting instructions to a number of the guards was Mr. Hérard, a member of the presidential safety pressure on the time, in keeping with a witness interviewed by The New York Occasions and to Mr. McNichols, who arrived about two hours later and began his investigation on the scene.
Witnesses not solely informed him about Mr. Hérard’s actions on the port, but additionally that many of the illicit cargo — as a lot as 800 kilograms of cocaine and 300 kilograms of heroin — had already been hauled away. A former United Nations official confirmed that Mr. Hérard had been noticed on the port and accused of deploying members of the presidential guard to ferry the medication off the ship.
In all, about 120 kilograms of cocaine and heroin had been ultimately recovered throughout a 28-day search by Haiti’s anti-narcotics unit, the D.E.A. and the U.S. Coast Guard. Even the recovered quantity makes it one of many largest drug busts on document in Haiti.
The D.E.A. wouldn’t touch upon its investigation into the fiasco on the port. Not one of the important suspects have been arrested, and the case in the end led to a whistle-blower grievance that the company was not doing sufficient to struggle drug trafficking in Haiti.
A number of witnesses have accused Mr. Hérard of working with Charles Saint-Rémy, the brother-in-law of former President Michel Martelly; Bernard Mevs, whose household owns the terminal the place the ship docked; and members of the Acra household, who imported the sugar the ship was carrying, to deliver medication into Haiti, in keeping with a present senior American official who labored on the case as properly.
Whereas the drug raid was first revealed by The Miami Herald, the truth that Mr. Hérard and the previous president’s brother-in-law had been suspects within the investigation has not beforehand been reported.
Mr. Hérard is at present in Haitian custody, detained in reference to the assassination. The president’s widow has angrily demanded to know what occurred to the handfuls of guards Mr. Hérard commanded, and why none of them had been killed when assailants stormed her house on July 7, wounding her and capturing her husband lifeless on the ground beside her.
Mr. Hérard couldn’t be reached for remark in detention, and his lawyer declined to move on inquiries to his shopper. A spokeswoman for the Haitian Nationwide Police denied that the pressure was concerned in narcotics trafficking.
Mr. Saint-Rémy texted “no, no, no” when requested whether or not he had ever taken half in drug trafficking. A member of the Acra household declined to remark. And Mr. Mevs denied any wrongdoing or ever assembly Mr. Hérard, including that he knew Mr. Saint-Rémy solely as an acquaintance.
Mr. Mevs’s lawyer, Joel Hirschhorn, stated that the D.E.A. was counting on impoverished Haitians prepared to mislead help a biased investigation.
“It doesn’t take a lot for somebody who’s determined to take the provide of a greater life,” he added, “to take the D.E.A. ball and run with it, even when it might be false.”
However the net of corruption in Haiti ran even deeper, Mr. McNichols asserted — all the way in which to the D.E.A. itself.
When Mr. McNichols and a second former D.E.A. agent, George Greco, first arrived in Haiti in 2014, they stated they seen as a lot as $1.2 million in irregular bills that appeared to allow a senior D.E.A. official to obtain fraudulent reimbursements.
Witnesses had additionally reported seeing the senior D.E.A. official assembly a number of occasions with Mr. Saint-Rémy in non-public, elevating considerations that the official was tipping off Mr. Saint-Rémy about D.E.A. operations, in keeping with Mr. McNichols and an affidavit by an F.B.I. agent. The D.E.A. prohibits brokers from assembly alone with suspected drug traffickers, to forestall bribery and collusion.
A D.E.A. spokeswoman declined to touch upon the allegations.
Mr. McNichols stated he reported the suspicious funds and conferences, solely to be reprimanded by his superiors throughout the D.E.A. for urgent the matter.
He and Mr. Greco recounted severe flaws in antidrug efforts in Haiti. Every time he and Mr. Nichols tried to enter the seaport, they stated guards stalled them on the entrance for about half an hour, regardless of their diplomatic license plates. However once they pushed the D.E.A. to do extra to repair the issues, they stated they had been rebuffed.
“The port is an open sewer,” Mr. Greco stated.
Van Williams, one other United Nations anti-narcotics supervisor based mostly in Haiti on the time, agreed.
“There was little or no significance positioned on the docks, which I discovered very unusual,” Mr. Williams stated. “Corruption in Haiti from the highest on down is so rampant.”
The issues at Haiti’s seaports persist. With solely two operational sea vessels for 1,100 miles of coast, “maritime regulation enforcement is a frightening job,” concluded an American authorities report earlier this yr. Solely 5 individuals have been convicted of drug trafficking in Haiti, and the federal government didn’t classify corruption as a criminal offense till 2014, the report added.
Mr. McNichols stated his alarm grew as his investigation deepened. Traffickers informed him that Haiti had turn into a most popular transit route for smugglers as a result of the police helped transfer hundreds of kilos of medication for them.
What Mr. Hérard might have performed with the illicit cargo taken from the port that day stays unclear. However his job defending Mr. Martelly, the president on the time, and allegations that he labored with Mr. Saint-Rémy — Mr. Martelly’s brother-in-law — had been central factors within the investigation.
The Assassination of Haiti’s President
Mr. Martelly was practically a yr away from ending his presidential time period and making ready his handpicked successor, a little-known banana exporter named Jovenel Moïse, to take his place.
However Mr. Martelly denied a request from the Haitian judicial police to query Mr. Hérard over his position within the Manzanares case, in keeping with a United Nations official stationed in Haiti on the time. Mr. Martelly declined to remark.
Mr. Hérard emerged once more as a suspect within the assassination of Mr. Moïse. The president’s widow stated her husband referred to as Mr. Hérard because the killers stormed the home, pleading for assist. Cellphone data and Mr. Hérard’s preliminary testimony additionally confirmed that Mr. Moïse had referred to as him at 1:39 a.m. on the evening of the killing. However Mr. Hérard and his unit by no means engaged the hit squad on the residence, as an alternative mounting a roadblock far away, in keeping with his preliminary police testimony.
Haitian safety officers ultimately cornered a number of the suspected assailants in a home close to the presidential residence. Officers stated they noticed Mr. Hérard talking by phone to the mercenaries and making an attempt to barter their give up, however it was unclear how Mr. Hérard had obtained their numbers.
Mr. Hérard wasn’t the one individual within the president’s orbit suspected or convicted of drug trafficking. In March, Lissner Mathieu, a convicted trafficker who offered what the Moïse administration referred to as “skilled providers” for the nationwide palace, was arrested in Haiti by the D.E.A. and flown to the USA.
Mr. Mathieu fled to Haiti in 2006 after admitting in courtroom that he had smuggled 500 kilograms of cocaine into the USA. When Mr. Mathieu was detained, he was discovered with an entry card to the nationwide palace. A photograph of him on the marketing campaign path with Mr. Moïse later emerged. The president’s workplace later stated Mr. Mathieu was not an worker and had an entry badge like many different service suppliers.
As for the medication coming via the seaport, Mr. McNichols and Mr. Greco stated that the obstacles, stonewalling and hostility they endured throughout the D.E.A. ultimately led them to depart the company.
Final month, the U.S. Workplace of the Particular Counsel, the American authorities arm chargeable for defending federal employees from political interference, reprimanded the D.E.A. for its dealing with of the Manzanares case and for not doing extra to wash up Haiti’s ports.
“I went via hell, talking the reality and making an attempt to do the proper factor,” stated Mr. McNichols.
Anatoly Kurmanaev in Port-au-Prince and Julian Barnes in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.