Wannabe rapper with a big following is a Haiti gang leader. YouTube just shut him down

A notorious Haitian gang leader who has been using social media to rap about his alleged crimes while ruling over one of Haiti’s infamous kidnapping lairs has been banned by YouTube.

“Izo 5 Segonn,” head of the 5 Segonn/5 Segond gang in Port-au-Prince’s Village de Dieu slum, had his channel terminated late Thursday night by the social media platform, which is owned by Google.

“We terminated the channel in question for violating our Community Guidelines, which prohibit content inciting others to commit violence,” Jack Malon, a YouTube spokesperson, confirmed to the Miami Herald.

The decision came amid an outcry from Haitians, both in Haiti and abroad, after the gang leader and aspiring rapper was shown in a video cheerfully unwrapping a silver plaque, a YouTube Creator Award given to content creators who reach 100,000 subscribers. He had at least 111,000.

“The Silver Play Button, as the award is also referred to, is not an endorsement of creators or their conduct off our platform, and we expect all creators to follow our Community Guidelines,” Malon said.

Still, the award ignited a campaign by a group calling itself Men Anpil to have Segonn removed. By Thursday, a petition launched on Change.org had amassed 20,339 of 25,000 signatures being sought. The petition’s backers included a former kidnapping victim who had been held hostage by the gang.

“The goal is to shut him down everywhere because he is on TikTok; he is on other platforms,” said the former hostage, who asked that his name not be used to protect his family in Haiti, and welcomes YouTube’s decision. “We wanted to focus on one platform at a time....Now that YouTube has made the first move, we are going to continue with TikTok, Instagram and others.

“I want to make sure he’s not getting any funds from any of these platforms. That is one of the goals,” he added. “Obviously the goal is to get him arrested so that he is not a role model for regular Haitians....That’s my main concern.”

Last year, after the rapper, who goes by Izo, published a video in which he threatened to kill 30 people, Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, shut down his Facebook and Instagram accounts. However, critics say he continues to use the platforms under different names.

In their petition, supporters argue that the gang leader should not be be allowed to monetize his content by parlaying followers into income. Nor should he have access to YouTube, they said, noting that social media platforms have become a means for Haiti’s vicious gangs to terrorize the population, recruit new members and brag about their exploits, which include kidnappings and killings.

“Although he resides in Haiti in the notorious Village De Dieu, ground zero for gang activity and control, Izo was able to get his plaque seemingly effortlessly and have quite an influential reach and growing presence online,” Men Anpil said in its Change.org petition description. “Such a vicious character responsible for some of the most brutal crimes in Haiti right now deserves no praise, no recognition, and no platform to propagate his influence.”

According to YouTube, the awards are given at the social media platform’s discretion and to creators who have played by the rules. This includes not promoting content that incites others to commit violent acts.

This is not the case with the rapper. In one video, where his face is covered with a ski mask, he is joined by several young men, also with their faces covered, rapping alongside. Clad in black sweatshirts and caps with “5 Segond” written in yellow, they brandish pistols while rapping about their prowess and various gun brands.

In a more recent video Izo shows his face and raps that he lets his guns do the talking for him. He also boasts about killing people, selling corpses and being a Haitian death God. He compares himself to Jesus, rapping that he can shoot whomever he wants.

On his YouTube page Izo, who is no relation to the popular Haitian rapper Izolan of the rap kreyòl group Barikad Crew, was featured with a cigar in his mouth. The page describes him as “Izo Vilaj De Dye, Haitian Rapper, Singer, Songwriter and also record producer. His music first became popular during his teen years in the early 2019s among high school students from Port Au Prince Haiti.”

To Haitian police and victims of the country’s escalating gang violence and kidnappings, however, he’s someone much more sinister. He’s the infamous leader of Village de Dieu, a concrete maze where gang kidnapping victims are taken after being abducted from the streets or from inside their homes and businesses. It is also where five Haitian police officers from several elite units, including SWAT, were ambushed and killed in a botched raid on March 31, 2021. The gang took possession of an armored vehicle and, despite pleas from the family and the police, refused to turn over the officers’ corpses.

Late last year, the U.S. Department of Justice charged one of the gang’s other leaders, Emanuel Solomon, aka Manno, in a criminal complaint for kidnapping a U.S. citizen in January 2021. The victim was taken hostage at gunpoint and held for 11 days until his family and friends in the U.S. paid the ransom, DOJ said. The gang kept the victim’s car and two phones, and finally released the victim on Jan. 23, 2021. Solomon’s indictment was announced along with a $1 million reward for three gang leaders involved in the kidnapping of 17 American and Canadian missionaries in October 2021. Among those being sought by the FBI is Vitélhomme Innocent, leader of the gang Kraze Baryè.

In Haiti, gangs are increasingly gaining control of most of the metropolitan Port-au-Prince area and expanding their reach to other regions like the Artibonite Valley, just north of the capital. More than 530 Haitians have been killed in gang-related deaths since the beginning of this year, the United Nations has said, while Haitians continue to be displaced from their homes.

Haiti’s Center for Analysis and Research on Human Rights said there were 389 kidnappings reported in the first quarter of this year, an increase of 173% compared to the same time frame last year. The victims include Jean-Dickens Toussaint and his wife, Abigail, both 33, from Tamarac. The Haitian American couple was kidnapped on March 18 and finally released more than three weeks later on Thursday, according to family.