Four men were arrested in Florida in connection with the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse of Haiti.
Arcangel Pretel Ortiz, 50, Antonio Intriago 59, Walter Veintemilla, 54, and Frederick Bergmann, 64, have all been charged with conspiracy to kill Moïse and replace him as president.
According to the attorney's office of Southern Florida, three of the men are U.S. citizens, while Ortiz, a Colombian national, is a U.S. permanent resident who resides in Miami.
After the arrests, a grand jury in South Florida returned "a third superseding indictment" charging the four men along with seven others who were also arrested and charged in the United States for their alleged involvement in the assassination.
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland announced the arrests in an official statement.
“Today, individuals who we allege participated in the planning, financing, and orchestration of the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse will face justice in an American courtroom,” Garland said in a statement. “The court documents unsealed today outline an alleged plan by the defendants, some of whom were operating within the United States, to remove President Moise from office by either killing or kidnapping him in order to replace him with a candidate who would serve their political goals and financial interests. The Justice Department will not tolerate individuals plotting violent attacks from U.S. soil that undermine the rule of law abroad.”
“Today’s arrests show the FBI’s commitment to vigorously pursue the individuals involved in the brazen plot to kidnap or kill the former Haitian president,” FBI Director Christopher Wray added. “As demonstrated by this case, the men and women of the FBI will work tirelessly across borders and oceans to uphold the rule of law. The FBI will not tolerate these acts of violence perpetrated abroad against our international partners.”
Deputy Secretary John K. Tien of the Department of Homeland Security said, “The Department of Homeland Security is deeply committed to combating transnational organized crime. To those engaged in illicit activities, let today stand as a reminder that we remain relentless and vigilant in holding you accountable and dismantling your unlawful operations.”
Federal prosecutors argued that Ortiz and Intriago had a financial interest in Counter Terrorist Unit Security (CTU), and Veintemilla had ties to the Worldwide Capital Lending Group. The suspects allegedly hatched a plan to replace Moïse with Christian Emmanuel Sanon in exchange for future government contracts.
According to the reports, Veintemilla allegedly consented to underwrite the coup with a $175,000 line of credit to CTU. Additionally, ammunition was purchased in Hait, and Ortiz and Intriago reportedly hired 20 men to provide security to Sanon through CTU.
Authorities claimed that the original plan by the co-conspirators was to apprehend Moïse on a plane and take him to an unspecified location. According to court documents, the plan fell apart when suspects couldn't find a plane or weapons to carry out the scheme.
In July 2021, Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was killed at his private residence in Port-au-Prince. In the attack, former First Lady, Martine Moïse, was also shot several times but survived the ambush.
“A group of unidentified individuals, some of them speaking Spanish, attacked the private residence of the president of the republic and, thus, fatally wounded the head of state,” former Prime Minister Claude Joseph said in a statement at the time. “But there was little solid information about who might have carried out the assassination.”
Moïse, who was elected in 2017 after a lengthy and highly contentious election process that was riddled with numerous delays and accusations of voter fraud. An entrepreneur, who never held a political position, Moïse was chosen by the country's previous president Michel Martelly, who resigned in 2016 without a plan of succession.
