P-to-P, June 18, 2024 [AlterPresse] — Federal prosecutors in the United States of America seek a life sentence for the gang’s former leader 400 MarozoGermine Joly, better known as Onionswho pleaded guilty, in January 2024, to having facilitated the purchase and smuggling of high-powered weapons from Florida to Haiti, indicates the Miami Herald newspaper, consulted by the online agency AlterPresse.
A life sentence for this gang leader is appropriate because he “is responsible for specific illegal activities, which underlie his convictions for money laundering and multiple hostage-takings of American citizens,” argue -they.
Federal prosecutors are asking the federal court in the United States of America to “send a message to Haitian gang leaders – and those who would support their brutal criminal plans – that violations of U.S. law will be severely punished.”
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A report from the federal probation office recommended that Germine Joly extradited, on Tuesday, May 3, 2022, to the United States of Americaor sentenced to 20 years in prison followed by 36 months of supervised probation.
Germine Joly and three Florida co-conspirators were indicted by a grand jury for violating U.S. export and money laundering laws, among other crimes.
The accomplices, all Haitian nationals, received at least 28,000.00 dollars (Editor’s note: US $ 1.00=+ 140.00 gourdes; 1 euro=143.00 gourdes; 1 Canadian dollar=97.00 gourdes; 1 Dominican peso=2.40 gourdes today), in transfers electronics, to buy dozens of semi-automatic weapons, intended to fuel the gangs’ deadly hold on the capital, Port-au-Prince.
The guns were purchased with ransom proceeds from U.S. citizens taken hostage in Haiti, the U.S. government said.
Germine Joly, nicknamed Onions32 years old, as well as two other Haitian nationals and an American were formally accused, on May 4, 2022, by the American justice system, of having participated in a criminal conspiracy, aimed at violating American export laws, by smuggling firearms and ammunition to Haiti.
Detained in the United States, Germine Joly pleaded guilty on January 31, 2024, for his role in the arms trafficking conspiracy, which allowed firearms to be transported to Haiti, in violation of U.S. export laws, as well as for the laundering of ransoms paid for the gang’s American hostages 400 Marozo in 2021.
In April 2021, gang members 400 Marozo kidnapped a group of Roman Catholic nuns and priestsincluding French nationals, before being released on April 30, 2021, against ransoms.
Six months later, the group then kidnapped and detained, for 62 days, 17 missionaries, including 16 Americans and one Canadianamong them, five children.
Germine Joly faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, when he is convicted.
In addition to Onions, an indictment was also issued to Eliande Tunis, 43 years old (as of 2022), American citizen, of Pompano Beach, Florida; Jocelyn Dor, 29, Haitian citizen residing in Orlando, Florida, and Walder Saint-Louis, 33, Haitian citizen residing in Miami.
Eliande Tunis, the former partner of Germine Joly, pleaded guilty the day before the trial, January 17, 2024.
She also faces a maximum prison sentence, when she is convicted.
Jocelyn Dor was sentenced, on Wednesday February 28, 2024, to 60 months (5 years) in prison, for trafficking firearms from the United States to Haitiby Judge John D. Bates of a United States court, indicated the Embassy of the United States of America in Haiti, in a press release.
Jocelyn Dor was convicted “for having participated in a very sophisticated smuggling scheme, which made it possible to export or attempted to export at least 24 firearms from the United States to Haiti, as well as hundreds of munitions,” specifies the American embassy in Haiti. [emb rc apr 18/06/2024 17:25]
