I am sharing an article published in Libération, a few weeks ago about a drug case, corruption and a vendetta, held in Port de Paix, the capital of Northwest in 2008.
journalists often tend to exaggerate things but I think this story gives a good idea of life "exciting" in this city. You understand why I do not rush me all weekend there ...
In 2008, Port-de-Paix, police and magistrates come across the loot from a big shot of the drug and use very widely. The scandal is still running.
Port de Paix, Haiti's city of about 120,000 inhabitants, and its white beaches such as sugar ( under the rubbish, I'm willing to believe that the beaches are white ), is the location of all special effects, all the retraction of all trades and all miseries. There is a ghost who is mayor more often than Miami mayor, two brothels ( only? ), five halls and three hotels kept by men armed with a Remington 12 gauge. At the port, customs closes at 16 pm and reopens at 10 am the next day. Opposite, on the island of Tortuga, "three cops on a hammock," says, Vachard, an observer of the UN Mission for Stabilization in Haiti.
Turtle is under the thumb of a guy named John ALCERA. A real estate developer. That's for the front. The man, wanted for drug trafficking, back and forth with impunity. Between Port de Paix and the island with an inlet, placed in the middle of a boat U.S. Coast Guard. Suffice to say that Port-de-Paix is a city where the Haitian State has long since fallen dry powder. Today, the mortality rate from cholera is two per thousand inhabitants in the region. Last month, a fishing boat sank in the night with twenty-two illegal immigrants. "It takes 45 dollars on these boats for a trip to certain death," says the evangelist Tony Vernio.
On Wednesday, November 12, 2008, at the stroke of 16 hours, four kilometers out of Port-de-Paix, when we take due east along the sea trawlers stranded in a place called Lavaud, on a hill surrounded by banana plantations overlooking the island of Tortuga distant 7000, held a magic white but has nothing to do with voodoo potions.
On termination of cocaine trafficker cons Mackendy promise of liberation, eighteen policemen and eight judges, including the prosecutor Rene Moses, entering a house of concrete block attached to a sort of little "Trianon" reinforced concrete. It belongs to Marc Frederic, the uncle of one of the largest in the drug trade in Haiti: Alain Desire. Le Trianon, it was erected by Desire. The latter, "who has spent his entire career trader in the Bahamas," according to the new presiding judge in Port-de-Paix, returned home to put in the shade. The Bahamian authorities have issued an arrest warrant.
Desire is 32 years old, small, skinny. He only speaks English and Creole. It was exfiltrated to Miami two days earlier at night by the Drug Enforcement Administration, under the authority of the drug squad. Shots were exchanged between the men of the National Police (HNP) and those who desire to flee before the number. Here begins the story the "treasure of the buccaneers" in the words of Stephen Vinx, the judge in the trial of this case which always shakes Port-de-Paix, two years after the fact. The house is combed through. A small hammer, a police probe walls. Nothing. Then it was the turn of the concrete slab. The police dropped the hammer, grabbed a weight and hits the pavement which is starred. Through the rebars, the police characterized the loot Alain Desire launderer "mafias, mainly Mexican," according to the cops who are also looking for Dominicans. Hands frantically dive into what is now a cesspool, the risk of opening the arm by chains on edge.
And there is "heaven on earth," said one of the corrupt cops who crossed, two weeks ago, a colleague at the police station in Port-de-Paix. Is hoisted into cries of joy, but with difficulty, a safe 40 kilos. Then two suitcases. Finally, rather, two trunks, according to a witness. Shoe boxes stuffed with $ 100 bills. Dozens of sets of 15 000 dollars by tight elastic bands. Sports bags. The cops are like crazy. And use by stuffing his pockets, the pants and shirt at the point of blowing up the buttons. They also put into socks. Looting
hard, according to witnesses, "Twenty-five minutes." The whole neighborhood came running and looks prohibits enforcement gormandize the dough to "Alain," a man of "good", as indicated by a farmer whose wife "out of diapers" was saved by "the doctor paid by Alain. The police and magistrates in cars back then, the process hampered by the bundles that are outside of the pants, breasts swollen tickets. For Senator Yuri Latortue, who chaired the Commission for Justice and Security in the Senate, "it is the most shameful scandal of recent years that has tarnished the image of the country."
The night will fall a minute to another. The procession of robbers jumped on the track, sirens wailing, surrounded by stray dogs and girls in uniform returning from school, is approaching the urinals in the stagnant water splashing vendors guavas. Two years later, the scene of the crime, there are election posters faded, murals invitation to a dance and overflowing urinals. And always vendors guavas.
It is a little over 18 hours this November 12, 2008 when police and magistrates in the police return to swimming. The cops, braces on the kidneys, pushing the paperwork on the table by excluding the forearm, and there lay the bags of loot. This is no longer the dilapidated police station: the basement of polished steel of the Chase Manhattan Bank. Sharing can begin. Secretaries mistresses 1500 dollars. Registrars felons? The same amount. To messenger? Come on, 1000. And the envelope for Senator from the corner that we cover? 25 000 dollars it should do the trick, right? The prosecutor Moses calls his top prosecutor Balthazar one who signed the false search, but curiously absent on business ... in Miami that day. The two men agree to give the authorities the amount of 510,000 dollars, the result of the raid on Desire. Then he must give the violins. A single version should be given because the rumor of sharing the spoils going tomorrow to tour the city. First, nobody has touched anything. Then we found only 510 000 dollars. Finally, the first speaker is dead.
But when Moses returned home, he throws a terrible rage. First his driver Edmond Brutus has disappeared. Where is even after this stupid? he said. Moses told him yet two suitcases out in the fresh search for Alain Desire. Brutus load to be hand delivered to his wife, "Madame Rene. Brutus was executed but has returned ... a suitcase. Moses has doubled as a bruise. The
Brutus in question, the day after the looting, bought a Toyota pickup with 25,000 dollars and contacted a contractor. It intends to build a palace in the town of Jean Rabel, 30 km from Port de Paix. Indeed, if Port-de-Paix may resemble a small tropical Palermo, Jean-Rabel's a bit Corleone. Once out of the ground, Brutus was sold and gone. Must be said that the palace had become the driver object Visits and sarcasm of the population. The driver of the prosecutor Balthazar, who had also doubled his boss by stealing the stolen loot, also had built a palace. These houses are now abandoned. The owners obviously on the run.
Only the rank and file will be judged. Three judges and four police officers in nature. The latter "with their service weapon," as indicated by the Inspector Robert (name changed at the request of the latter, ie), surrounded by two daughters, one hand on the shoulder of each. Balance Mackendy who sold Desire has not enjoyed much of his freedom since the HNP, which was partially drained its black sheep, has recently picked up dead drunk in a brothel in the city throwing $ 100 bills on the dance floor.
Desire, he was sentenced to fifteen years in Miami. His aunt Lisa Joseph pray every day "the Virgin" by showing her rosary: "We knew he was in business but no one knew why," she said in Creole. It occupies the Petit Trianon of his nephew whose seals were broken. For the Dominican police, whose release has obtained the report, Desire was an ace of money laundering. Two years after the fact, "the lawsuit is on appeal, while many of the protagonists of the case, magistrates and police are on the run, "said J. Stephen. And for good reason: those who fell were quickly emerged as the penitentiary in Port-au-Prince where they were on remand was screwed to the ground by the earthquake. So all these people is on the run. The scandal
Lavaud, as has been called the Haitian press, "has tarnished the image of the judiciary in our city." It is little to say. Already as Port-de-Paix was a "storage area for cocaine en route to the United States," says the committee has issued a damning report on the functioning of justice.
The senior judge Ronel Court Gelin, who first, denounced the case to the press was suspended by the Department of Justice. He refused the prosecutor's $ 10,000 Moses to buy his silence. Ronel Gelin is now director of a Catholic high school in Port-de-Paix. For the former magistrate, "all the greatest beneficiaries of this scandal are in Port-au-Prince." A report by the Dominican police evokes an amount of "510,000 dollars handed over to authorities after the robbery. This is not one hundredth of the amount found. So how exactly in hiding? Ten? Fifteen? Twenty million? More?
Desire's uncle was révolvérisé. Miraculously out of business a few days later he died the day before leaving the hospital. Incorporates an inspector, who was preparing to denounce the widespread corruption in the police station in Port-de-Paix, was "suicided". "He wanted to talk. He was forced to drink battery acid, "said Inspector Robert. A driver of a magistrate was found beaten to death.
Alain Desire is really late in town. Especially on Friday. That day, he got in his little Trianon judges, cops, community leaders and journalists. Everyone walked away with his jacket.
J. Etienne up eyes to heaven: "How to fight against corruption when moving here the largest quantity of drugs toward the United States?" Last year, police in Port-de-Paix seized 33 kilograms of cocaine. It's not even the weight of a sack of cement. But 33 is also in the millions of dollars of treasure Caribbean Alain Desire. Finally, this is what is said in Port-de-Paix. Desire, it is not so eager to get out. This is understandable: Mexicans do not like to roll in flour.
Drawing Mezzo Liberation.fr
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