20697: (Hermantin)Miami-Herald-Haitian security chief faces smuggling charge (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Tue, Mar. 23, 2004

HAITI


Haitian security chief faces smuggling charge

A former official during the Aristide administration is accused of
trafficking cocaine and appears in a Miami federal court.

BY LARRY LEBOWITZ

nsanmartin@herald.com


AND NANCY SAN MARTIN

A former security chief for ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
appeared in Miami federal court Monday on a cocaine smuggling case that
highlighted U.S. complaints that Aristide's government was soft on
traffickers.

Oriel Jean, 39, is the highest-level Haitian official to be implicated in
narcotics trafficking since the mid-1990s, when the nation was run by
anti-Aristide military and police officers.

Jean, who was extradited from Canada last week, is charged with one count of
conspiracy to traffic cocaine. He will be held without bond at the Federal
Detention Center in Miami and could seek bond at a later date.

''This is a high-level official who used his position and authority to allow
drug trafficking,'' said Joe Kilmer, a spokesman for the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration.

MORE ARRESTS LIKELY

Kilmer said more arrests are likely but declined to discuss whether Aristide
was among the potential targets. Neither Aristide nor other members of his
government are mentioned in the complaint.

The DEA, which has agents working out of the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince,
has long been investigating Haitian and Colombian drug traffickers who use
the impoverished nation as a transshipment point.

The traffickers use Haiti as a drop-off spot for large quantities of cocaine
and heroin later smuggled into the U.S. market, as well as a transshipment
place for cash going to Panama and other money-laundering havens.

The Bush administration has been critical of Aristide's administration in
the effort to stem the flow of drugs and last year declared that Haiti had
''failed demonstrably'' to combat drug trafficking.

.

Jean served as chief of presidential palace security for Aristide from the
beginning of 2001 until June 2003, well after Washington canceled Jean's
U.S. visa because of the trafficking allegation against him.

Jean was arrested in Canada two weeks ago, after he arrived on a flight from
the Dominican Republic, based on a hastily cobbled and sealed criminal
complaint issued March 11.

In the affidavit, Special Agent Younjae Kim said the DEA built the case
against Jean based information from four confidential informants who have
provided reliable, corroborated information about other traffickers.

INFORMANTS

The first three have pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges and are
hoping to have their sentences reduced in return for their cooperation. The
fourth is a former Haitian National Police Officer who has not been charged
with a crime and is cooperating under a limited immunity agreement with
federal prosecutors in Miami, the affidavit showed.

Informant No. 1, a former Haitian drug trafficker, said that from the end of
2000 until June 2003, he paid Jean $50,000 for each plane-load of cocaine
that Jean would allow to land in Haiti, according to the affidavit.

Informant No. 2 is a Colombian who lived 11 years in Haiti, where he
received cocaine shipments from his homeland and distributed them to
Haitians who smuggled them into the U.S. market.

Informant No. 2 told the DEA that Jean summoned him to a meeting in
September 2002 at which Jean demanded a percentage of his profits. He said
he agreed to pay Jean 10 percent of the cash he was receiving from his
smuggling operations.

Two months later, Informant No. 2 said, he personally delivered $50,000 in
cash to Jean -- 10 percent of the $500,000 in drug profits that he was
sending to Panama through the Port-au-Prince airport.

Informant No. 3, a Haitian who has confessed to smuggling cocaine into Miami
in hidden ship compartments from 1995 to 2000, told the DEA he observed Jean
take a cut of the profits from other traffickers.

Informant No. 4, an ex-Haitian National Police Officer, told the DEA about a
money courier who was arrested in September 2002 at the Port-au-Prince
airport while trying to smuggle $300,000 in U.S. currency to Panama. The
money belonged to Informant No. 2. According to the complaint, Jean returned
most of the money to the trafficker, minus his 10-percent ``fee.''

After the hearing, Jean's attorney, David Raben, said his client intends to
``vigorously fight the charges.''

_________________________________________________________________
Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfeeŽ
Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963