He was a powerful Haiti politician. Now U.S. accuses him of ‘significant corruption’

The U.S. sanctioned another Haitian lawmaker on Wednesday, accusing him of facilitating and soliciting bribes worth million of dollars.

Gary Bodeau, who was sanctionedby the Canadian government late last year, was sanctioned by the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which targets perpetrators of serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world.

Bodeau, 45, is a former president of the Lower Chamber of Deputies in the Haitian Parliament who was considered one of the most powerful lawmakers under President Jovenel Moïse before his July 2021 assassination. Bodeau will now be ineligible to enter the United States under visa restrictions and any assets he currently has in the United States will be blocked.

In a statement, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Bodeau of being involved in “significant corruption.”

“The United States and its partners will continue to use all tools at our disposal to support the Haitian people and promote accountability for corrupt actors who exploit the Haitian people and contribute to the ongoing instability in Haiti,” Blinken said.

Bodeau’s designation follows that of several other high-profile members of Haiti’s political class and business community. The financial sanctions, which prevent travel to the United States and freeze any assets the individual may have in U.S. banks, are part of a new foreign policy by the U.S. and Canada targeting members of Haiti’s political and business elite. Both Washington and Ottawa have accused powerful figures in Haiti of contributing to the Caribbean nation’s political destabilization by financing violent protests and armed gangs and facilitating corruption.

“Corrupt officials like Bodeau have created an environment that empowers illegal armed gangs and their supporters to inflict violence on the Haitian people,” said Brian Nelson, Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. “Along with our partners, including Canada, we are committed to holding accountable those undermining the integrity of Haiti’s government and destabilizing the country.”

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Foreign governments have long been troubled by corruption in Haiti, which in recent years has increasingly become an open and accepted practice with Haitian lawmakers openly admitting on radio to accepting bribes to either remove or pass cabinet ministers. And according to the Biden administration, Bodeau, who once led a dynamic group of politically active youth, Jèn Kore Jèn, was among them.

Bodeau, the Treasury Department said, was involved in several corrupt schemes to influence the outcome of Haitian political appointments, including facilitating and soliciting bribes worth millions of dollars.

In 2018, Bodeau paid Haitian officials to secure their votes while seeking ministerial position appointments. He also solicited a large bribery payment worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from senior government officials in exchange for his political support, Treasury alleges.

A year later, during one of the more vexing periods of Moïse’s administration, Bodeau allegedly offered to deliver a successful vote in Haiti’s Lower Chamber of Deputies for a prospective ministerial appointee in exchange for millions of dollars paid out through individual payments to members of the chamber, Treasury said.

While Treasury did not provide any names, officials say several Haitian businessmen provided between 500 and 600 million Haitian gourdes (approximately $6.2 million to $7.4 million) to members of the Lower Chamber of Deputies to influence the outcome of a ministerial vote. In advance of the floor session, Bodeau participated in discussions on the vote and payments with various members of the Chamber of Deputies.

Those allegations centered around a key vote for the No. 2 job in Haiti’s government involving Fritz William Michel. An unknown government functionary in the ministry of economy and finance, Michel was tapped by Moïse in 2019 to become prime minister after Moïse had failed on three different attempts to get his top pick through Parliament following the ouster of lawyer Jean Henry Céant from the role.

Céant, the last legitimate prime minister under Moïse, was fired after six months by the Lower Chamber of Deputies while it was being led by Bodeau. The firing led to the international community withholding millions of dollars in aid and helped deepen Haiti’s political crisis. The United Nations, U.S., Canada and others in the international community would later condemn the behavior of opposition senators when they ransacked the chamber of the Senate to interrupt one of the ratification votes.

After Michel was approved by the Lower Chamber, his nomination was then sent to the Senate, where allegations of corruption would later kill his bid. At least two senators would publicly take to the radio and acknowledge that bribery was the new currency of politics in Haiti and there is always distribution of cash for the ratification of a prime minister. A third would allege that at least five senators had pocketed $100,000 each to confirm Michel as prime minister.

Michel would later deny the bribery allegations along with other corruption accusations that he raked in more than $16 million in government contracts, which included the sale of goats for $500 apiece to the government while he was employed in the ministries of finance and agriculture.

Haiti has been increasingly under pressure to address corruption with President Joe Biden signing into law last year legislation requiring the State Department to brief Congress on individuals in Haiti involved in acts of corruption. Earlier this week an investigative judge, Jean Wilner Morin, issued a letter to the Immigration Service requesting travel bans for eight individuals including the current director of customs, Julcène Edouard, and former director, Romel Bell, who has been sanctioned by the United States. The judge’s request is part of an investigation into illicit trafficking and money laundering at Haiti’s ports based on a 48-page report issued last month by the country’s Anti-Corruption Unit. That report, however, makes no mention of Edouard, leaving a representative of his to argue that he was included in the judge’s list in error.

Bodeau’s designation now brings the total number of Haitians hit by U.S. economic sanctions to six, including Bell, who could not be reached. Canada, meanwhile, has issued 19 financial sanctions against Haitian nationals since last fall. In addition to Bodeau, Ottawa also sanctioned Céant, who was seen in Palm Beach County last month attending the funeral of former Haitian Prime Minister Gérard Latortue. Both Céant and Bodeau have proclaimed their innocence.

Bodeau did not respond to a Herald request for comment. But in a letter addressed to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres in February, the former lawmaker claimed he was a victim of political persecution by Canada and accused the government of sanctioning him without any evidence and without a chance to defend himself.

“The Canadian Government has no concrete and palpable means to support this sanction against me,” he said at the time. “I am also outraged to be vilified without any evidence.”

The United States’ latest designation comes as support for sanctions grows in U.S. congressional and international circles amid escalating gang violence and kidnappings in Haiti.