Canada slaps sanctions on a powerful Haitian businessman and gang leaders

Three gang leaders and a high-profile Haitian businessman who once demanded a social contract among Haitians, have been sanctioned by the government of Canada.

André “Andy” Apaid — a longtime industrialist who once produced products for the U.S. Department of Defense and who launched the “Social Contract” movement in the early 2000s that sought to remove then-elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide from office amid allegations of corruption — is among the four people blacklisted, Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly announced Friday.

Apaid, who is known for his abrasive demeanor and his leadership of Group of 184, a group of Haitian individuals and civil society groups that once united against Aristide, could not be reached for comment. Once close to late Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, he continues to be in the apparel business but today operates an industrial free zone project in the expansive, unpoliced Savane Diane, a huge plane of 79,073 acres northeast of Port-au-Prince that crosses several Haitian regions.

Joly, as with the previous 22 people from Haiti who have been sanctioned by Ottawa, didn’t provide specifics about the allegations leading to sanctions against Apaid or the others. She announced the sanctions on Friday while hosting a meeting of Canada-Caribbean Community Group alongside Jamaica Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith, during the 53rd General Assembly of the Organization of American States in Washington.

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Both Ottawa and Washington have been pursuing sanctions against Haitians who they believe are linked to kidnapping armed gangs and Haiti’s ongoing instability. But while Canada has so far issued 26 economic sanctions, the United States has lagged, issuing more visa bans as opposed to the tougher sanctions from the U.S. Department of Treasury, which are often considered to be a “civil death.”

France, meanwhile, just managed to get a “common European policy” adopted, which means that soon European nations will also be issuing sanctions against Haitian individuals as investigators with the United Nations continue to work to issue global sanctions that would prevent those blacklisted from seeking refuge in any country that is part of the U.N.

“Our message for zero tolerance for corruption and impunity will be much louder if we send it together,” Joly recently said as she welcomed regional foreign ministers to a meeting about Haiti’s security where she also announced sanctions against well-known singer and former senator, Gracia Delva, and Prophane Victor, a member of Haiti’s Lower Chamber of Deputies.

She called on other countries to follow suit, saying that Haitians will no longer tolerate corruption and impunity. The country’s growing list of sanctioned individuals in Haiti includes two former presidents, two ex-prime ministers, well-heeled businessmen and once powerful senators. Two of those former senators — Youri Latortue and Joseph Lambert — have not only been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department but on Wednesday, an investigative judge in Haiti, Marthel Jean Claude, ordered their arrests for “embezzlement of public property,” and obstruction of justice, respectively.

The charges against Latortue stem from nine checks from the public treasury that were issued to his mother during his time in office, and later allegedly cashed by him. The judge has also ordered that he be taken to civil prison of Port-au-Prince, the country’s daily, Le Nouvelliste reported, while Lambert is being accused of refusing to turn over documents in his role as president of the Senate to help the investigation by the anti-corruption unit.

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In the latest listing, Apaid’s name was released along with three powerful gang leaders, two of whom were implicated in the abductions of American and Canadian missionaries in October of 2021 and held for as long as 61 days. Those gang leaders are: Lanmou Sanjou, aka, Joseph Wilson, and Vitel’homme Innocent, who heads the Kraze Baryè” gang and most recently has been implicated in the ongoing abduction of the former head of Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council, Pierre-Louis Opont.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations is offering a reward of up to $1 million for information leading to both Lanmou Sanjou and Innocent’s arrests in connection to their alleged roles in the Christian missionaries’ kidnapping.

Also added to Canada’s sanction list is Johnson André or Izo, who heads the 5 Segonn/5 Segond gang in Port-au-Prince’s Village de Dieu slum. The gang leader has gained notoriety not just for his infamous kidnapping lair where several police officers were killed during an anti-gang operation in March 2021, but also for his wannabe rap career.

In April, after receiving a YouTube Creator Award for amassing at least 100,000 subscribers to his social media channel where he rapped about his exploits in videos, his YouTube channel was shut down by the platform, which is owned by Google.

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In a statement, the Canadian government said sanctions have been imposed for human rights violations, including sexual violence, on the four.

“These sanctions impose a ban on transactions which has the effect of freezing any assets that these persons may hold in Canada. In addition, these individuals are now inadmissible to Canada under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act,” the foreign ministry said.