Surge of gang violence and kidnappings in Haiti spares no one, not even U.S. citizens

The abduction of a Haitian-American couple from Tamarac in Haiti a week ago and its ongoing aftermath show how the brunt of Haiti’s kidnapping scourge is being borne not just by those who fall victim, but by relatives abroad.

It also shows the complicated nature of dealing with kidnappings for ransom, which require patience, the ability to negotiate and, increasingly, access to large sums of cash to pay gangs that operate unchecked by the Haitian government.

“Everybody is a target because everybody now has a price,” said Réginald Delva, a security consultant and former secretary of state for public security in Haiti who runs Alerte Haiti, a support group for former hostages and their families. “Everybody is going after big money; it’s like a competition among them — who’s going to keep them longer and make more money?”

There have been at least 277 kidnappings reported in Haiti since the beginning of the year, according to the United Nations. The victims include a U.S. Embassy employee who was taken from inside her home in the hills of the capital not far from a police substation; a bank executive who was grabbed while driving home in Petionville; a beloved pediatrician and children’s hospital founder who hasn’t been heard from more than a month after her Feb. 2 abduction — and at least 101 others who were abducted and held for ransom the first two weeks of this month.

“Kidnapping is the thing people fear the most and there is no support from the police,” said Delva. “We have so many cases that police are now outnumbered by the amount of cases.”

Jean-Dickens Toussaint and his wife, Abigail, both 33, were kidnapped on March 18 after traveling to Haiti to see a sick relative and to attend Rara, a colorful pre-Easter festival that pays homage to Haiti’s revolutionary and Vodou roots in Leogane. To get to the rural village south of metropolitan Port-au-Prince, visitors can either fly to the southern city of Les Cayes and drive, or travel by road from the capital through several gang-controlled territories. The couple chose the latter, traveling along National Road No. 2, on a public bus. They were grabbed as they tried to cross Martissant, a strategic enclave at the southern exit of Port-au-Prince that has been shut down by worsening gang violence and kidnappings even before the July 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse.

Why the Toussaints, who marked their 10th day in captivity Tuesday, would choose the riskiest of travel options remains unclear. But their ongoing case has become a reminder of how no one, including U.S. citizens, are immune from Haiti’s violence.

“The way the country is today, someone can’t travel to Haiti and say you are going to travel through Martissant,” said Gédéon Jean, a lawyer who runs the Center for Analysis and Research in Human Rights in Port-au-Prince, which tracks kidnappings. “If there is any advice to give to anyone coming, it’s avoid any red zones, any area where you know there are a lot of kidnappings.”

Earlier this month, Haiti’s acting Minister of Justice and Public Security, Emmelie Prophète Milcé, addressed the reality Haitians face. She noted that while police have been instructed to mount more operations against gangs, there are not enough officers to meet the need. The minister said the government has lost territory to armed groups, and warned specifically about using the roads to Martissant.

On Tuesday, while traveling to North Carolina, President Joe Biden told McClatchy and the Miami Herald that the situation in Haiti worries him. Last week, during an official visit to Ottawa, he was unable to convince Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to lead a military intervention into Haiti, and Biden said the U.S. will now need to look to the U.N. peacekeepers.

Haitian gangs are becoming increasingly sophisticated, forcing multiple payments before releasing hostages and using drones and decoys to mark their victims before they are taken.

“The first thing everyone needs to understand is that kidnapping is a phenomenon that is occurring daily,” Jean said.

The gangs have become better organized and armed, leaving the Haitian police force, which lacks helicopters, drones and other equipment, at a disadvantage.

“The majority of people don’t go to the police,” Jean said of kidnapped victims’ families. “If someone chooses to go to the police, all they can do is counsel you, but there is no intervention. ... “We have a few rare cases where the police freed someone, but in general there is nothing they can do and if gangs take the person, you will have to pay.”

A friend of the Toussaints told the Miami Herald that the family initially paid a $6,000 ransom, but then the gang demanded another $200,000 per person.

Siblings of the couple in South Florida declined to comment, though one noted that Tuesday was the second birthday of the couple’s son, who was left behind in the U.S., and it was a very emotional day for the family as they awaited word from U.S. authorities handling the case to update them.

The FBI, which usually helps families through negotiations, declined to talk about the case and referred questions about kidnapped U.S. citizens to the State Department. A State Department spokesperson said the U.S. is aware that two citizens have been abducted in Haiti, but declined to say how many Americans have been kidnapped in Haiti.

Media attention not always good

While some of the Toussaints’ relatives have spoken out in the media, asking for their safe return, Haiti experts say such exposure usually leads to higher ransom demands and can even put individuals’ lives in danger.

“Once you go to the media, the market value price of the kidnappers increases automatically,” said Henry Beaucéjour, president of the Haiti American Chamber of E-Commerce, who splits his time between New York and Port-au-Prince, and has personally been involved in several ransom negotiations. “The gangs know the people have value and have people behind them, so you put their life in danger. The less you communicate to the media, the better chance of survival and a lower negotiated price for their release.”

Beaucéjour added that gangs have been known to force people to pay ransom more than once — and sometimes take the person making the ransom drop as hostage.

“The first thing you have to do is show them that the family doesn’t have money,” he said. “Once you start rushing, the price to get the person out goes up. You have to be patient, play on their heart and compassion. ... Negotiations have to be done right so you aren’t paying three and four times.”

But Beaucéjour acknowledged the risks of prolonged captivity.

U.N. officials said gangs are increasingly using sexual violence against abducted victims to get families to pay. Other times, they torture their victims. Prolonged captivity leaves scars.

“Anybody who spends 10 days in those guys’ hands, they never come out the same,” Beaucéjour said.

Gangs fearless and independent

Delva, who as a government minister in 2012 busted one of the biggest kidnapping rings in the country, said a lot has changed since ringleader Clifford Brandt, the son of a wealthy businessman, employed current and former cops to help him abduct the adult children of a business rival and demand a $2.5 million ransom.

Delva attributes the shift to the case involving 17 missionaries from the U.S. and Canada who were taken hostage in October 2021 by a gang, 400 Mawozo, east of the capital. The kidnapping wasn’t resolved through a U.S. military raid but through negotiations and a ransom payment.

The U.S. eventually extradited one of the gang’s leaders, Germine Joly, and indicted him and other members, but it hasn’t slowed down the gang, which today is responsible for several kidnappings and killings in an ongoing gang territorial war extending into the hills of the capital.

“That set the standard,” Delva said about the missionaries’ kidnapping. “Not only do the gangs now know that they can go months holding people, but that was a big message sent to gang leaders that ‘we can make a lot of money.’ “

Delva, who is currently dealing with four cases, including that of Dr. Genevieve Arty, the pediatrician who was abducted on Feb. 2, said gangs have become more sophisticated in gaining information about their victims. He knows of several cases in which hostages were informed of how much money they had in their bank accounts, weapons they have in their possession and where cameras around their properties were positioned.

In one recent incident, a hostage was informed by his kidnappers how many times they missed him because he was driving his BMW, which would have been difficult for the gang to hide. They finally took him as he traveled in a less obvious SUV.

In another abduction case, video footage showed the kidnappers dressed in police uniforms carrying out what resembled a police operation.

And police officers more and more end up providing security in the private sector, Delva said.

“The police have become the biggest private security force. .... If you even see cops out there, they are not really out there for the population. Most of the cops right now are involved in private services for the private sector,” Delva said.

And the gangs are aware.

“It is a big issue that needs to be addressed,” Delva said “The government has to understand this is the top priority right now.”

McClatchy Senior White House Correspondent Michael Wilner contributed to this report.