Officials said Tuesday that four men were arrested in Florida in connection with the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise.
The U.S. attorney’s office for Southern Florida claimed that Arcangel Pretel Ortiz, 50, Antonio Intriago, 59, Walter Veintemilla, 54, and Frederick Bergmann, 64, conspired to assassinate Moise and take his position as president.
According to NBC News, three of the men are American citizens, while Ortiz, a Colombian national, is a permanent resident of Miami.
A total of 11 people are now facing charges in Florida regarding the assassination.
On July 7, 2021, Moise was shot 12 times in his residence outside of Port-au-Prince and was pronounced dead while being transferred to the hospital.
Federal prosecutors said that Veintemilla worked for Worldwide Capital Lending Group while Ortiz and Intriago had financial ties to Counter Terrorist Unit Security (CTU).
They are accused of plotting to replace Moise with Christian Emmanuel Sanon to gain lucrative government contracts.
According to the federal prosecutor’s office, Veintemilla allegedly agreed to provide CTU with a $175,000 line of credit in exchange for helping to finance the coup.
The office claimed that Ortiz and Intriago hired 20 men through CTU to provide security for Sanon and that the co-conspirators would also get funding to purchase ammunition in Haiti.
The prosecutor’s office said Bergmann invested in Sanon and falsified export documents for 20 ballistic vests bearing CTU branding going to Haiti.
“By June 2021, the plan evolved as Ortiz, Intriago, Veintemilla, and others apparently realized that Sanon had neither the constitutional qualifications nor the popular support of the Haitian people to become President,” the federal prosecutor’s office said Tuesday. “They shifted their support from Sanon to a former Haitian Supreme Court judge.”
According to court documents, the men planned to kidnap Moise, force him on a plane, and take him to an unknown destination. However, the plan failed when the suspects could not locate a plane or enough weapons.
The charges against Ortiz, Intriago, and Veintemilla include one count each of conspiring to provide resources and material support to carry out a kidnapping or killing that results in death.
In addition to conspiracy and false and misleading export information, Bergmann was accused of smuggling ballistic vests from the U.S. to Haiti.
Veintemilla’s attorney, Tama Kudman, declared that his client would enter a not-guilty plea. In the meantime, according to reports, the investigation in Haiti remains essentially dormant as the U.S. investigation into the attempted coup moves forward.
Three judges withdrew from the case, fearing retaliation, and a fourth was removed. More than 40 suspects have been detained in Haiti, but no court dates have been scheduled. Many of them, including 18 Colombian soldiers, are being held in a severely overcrowded jail in Port-au-Prince that lacks food and water.
Following Moise death, gangs have gained power and territory in Haiti, and experts estimate that they control 60% of Port-au-Prince.
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