20753: (Hermantin)Sun-Sentinel-Former Aristide aide held without bail on drug smuggling (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Former Aristide aide held without bail on drug smuggling charges

By Ann W. O'Neill
and Alva James-Johnson Staff Writers
Posted March 23 2004

The former security chief of ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
appeared briefly Monday before a U.S. magistrate in Miami on charges of drug
trafficking.

Oriel Jean, 39, was accompanied by his lawyer, David Rabin. He was ordered
held without bail by U.S. Magistrate Robert L. Dube and will return to court
next week to answer a charge of conspiring to import cocaine into the United
States.

Jean was detained last week when he arrived in Toronto for a visit from the
Dominican Republic. He waived his extradition from Toronto and arrived
Friday in Miami, where he was taken into custody.

Jean's arrest raises questions about the extent to which the Aristide
government might have been involved in drug trafficking.

According to an affidavit unsealed Monday, the Drug Enforcement
Administration had been conducting "an ongoing investigation into the
activities of drug traffickers who utilize the island nation of Haiti as a
transshipment point" for drugs and drug money.

The affidavit revealed that four unnamed informants, three of them convicted
drug traffickers, helped federal agents and prosecutors build their case
against Jean, who was chief of presidential palace security under Aristide.

The affidavit, sworn out on March 11, was used to obtain a warrant for
Jean's arrest.

In the affidavit, DEA agent Youngjae Kim, who is based in the DEA's Fort
Lauderdale office, identified the first informant as a former Haitian drug
trafficker who has pleaded guilty and been sentenced in South Florida. He
told agents that during a three-year period, ending last June, he paid Jean
$50,000 in cash for each planeload of cocaine that he allowed to land on
Haiti's Route 9.

The second informant was a Colombian national who lived for 11 years in
Haiti, where he received cocaine shipments from Colombia that he distributed
to Haitian drug traffickers, who then smuggled the cocaine into the United
States. He described a meeting in September 2002 at which Jean demanded a 10
percent "cut" of the cocaine the informant shipped through Haiti to the
United States.

The informant, awaiting sentencing on drug-trafficking charges in Florida's
Middle District, said he paid Jean $50,000 in November 2002, representing 10
percent of $500,000 in drug profits he was sending to Panama through the
Port-au-Prince airport.

The third informant, another former Haitian drug trafficker who already has
pleaded guilty and been sentenced in South Florida, said he smuggled cocaine
into Miami from Haiti in hidden compartments aboard motorboats. He then
smuggled the money back to Haiti, where Jean would receive a share of the
profits.

The fourth informant is a former high-ranking Haitian National Police
officer who has been given limited immunity from prosecution. He told
authorities that a money courier was arrested at the Port-au-Prince airport
in September 2002 with $300,000 in cash. Jean took a percentage of the cash,
and the rest was returned to the Colombian drug trafficker.

Ann W. O'Neill can be reached at awoneill@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4531.
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Copyright © 2004, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

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