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The United States announced on Tuesday a reward of $5 million for the capture of Haiti gang leader, Jimmy “Barbeque” Cherizier, for purportedly breaching US sanctions.
Cherizier, 48, along with another individual, Bazile Richardson, has been charged with conspiring to channel funds from the US to support gang operations in Haiti, according to the Justice Department.
“There’s a good reason that there’s a $5 million reward for information leading to Cherizier’s arrest,” US Attorney Jeanine Pirro said at a press conference.
Since 2020, Cherizier has been under sanctions by the US Treasury Department, and the UN has imposed sanctions on him since 2022.
The former police officer leads a coalition of gangs in Haiti known as the “G9 Family,” whose members are implicated in various crimes, including murder, robbery, extortion, rape, targeted hits, drug trafficking, and kidnappings.
The gang coalition was involved in a coordinated attack last year that resulted in the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who was succeeded by a weakened transitional council.
According to the Justice Department, Cherizier and Richardson, a naturalised US citizen recently detained in Texas, solicited funds from the Haitian diaspora in the US and facilitated their transfer to intermediaries in Haiti. It is claimed that Cherizier used these funds to pay his gang members’ salaries and acquire weapons.
Haiti stands as the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere, with large areas and most of the capital, Port-au-Prince, under the dominance of armed gangs.
Despite the presence of a Kenyan-led multinational force intended to support Haiti’s police, violence has continued to escalate.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reported that at least 3,141 individuals were killed in the first half of this year.
