The Unit­ed States has in­creased the re­ward of­fer for in­for­ma­tion lead­ing to the ar­rest and or con­vic­tion of the Hait­ian gang leader, Vi­tel‘homme In­no­cent, with the Fed­er­al Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tion (FBI) plac­ing him on its Ten Most Want­ed Fugi­tives list.

The US State De­part­ment said that the re­ward has been in­creased to two mil­lion US dol­lars.

In­no­cent was in­dict­ed for al­leged­ly lead­ing a gang that helped in the 2021 armed hostage-tak­ing of 16 Chris­t­ian mis­sion­ar­ies serv­ing near Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Most were held cap­tive for 61 days be­fore es­cap­ing. The group in­clud­ed five chil­dren, one as young as eight months old at the time of the kid­nap­ping.

The US De­part­ment of Jus­tice had ear­li­er re­leased the in­dict­ment against In­no­cent for “con­spir­a­cy to com­mit hostage tak­ing re­sult­ing in death, and oth­er charges.”

In an­oth­er in­dict­ment un­sealed in Oc­to­ber 2023, In­no­cent is al­leged to have par­tic­i­pat­ed in a sec­ond hostage-tak­ing in­ci­dent in which one US cit­i­zen was killed.

Of­fi­cials say Marie Odette Franklin was al­leged­ly shot and killed by the gang mem­bers. Her hus­band was al­leged­ly tak­en in­to cap­tiv­i­ty and held at an undis­closed lo­ca­tion in Haiti. While Jean Franklin was in cap­tiv­i­ty, Vi­tel’Homme al­leged­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in ran­som ne­go­ti­a­tions in ex­change for his re­lease.

On Oc­to­ber 28, 2022, Jean Franklin was re­leased from cap­tiv­i­ty fol­low­ing ran­som pay­ments made to the gang on be­half of his fam­i­ly.

“The Unit­ed States sup­ports the ef­forts of our Hait­ian law en­force­ment part­ners to en­force rule of law in Haiti and com­bat transna­tion­al or­ga­nized crime,” said the State De­part­ment.

“The State De­part­ment is of­fer­ing a re­ward of up to $2,000,0000 for in­for­ma­tion lead­ing to his ar­rest and/or con­vic­tion. Our re­solve to bring him to ac­count for his al­leged crimes will not wa­ver. I want to thank the State De­part­ments Diplo­mat­ic Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vice and the U.S. At­tor­ney’s Of­fice for the Dis­trict of Co­lum­bia for their close co­op­er­a­tion and part­ner­ship in­ves­ti­gat­ing these cas­es.”

The FBI said In­no­cent is be­lieved to be in Haiti, but has oth­er ties to oth­er Caribbean coun­tries.

The in­crease in the re­ward for In­no­cent comes a few days af­ter Iskar An­drice, a pow­er­ful gang leader in Haiti, who was known as a for­mer math and physics teacher, was killed in a neigh­bor­hood with­in a sprawl­ing sea­side slum that he con­trolled.

The ex­act date of his death re­mains un­clear, but his death has raised con­cerns of an es­ca­la­tion in gang vi­o­lence in the coun­try.

Me­dia re­ports said that An­drice led a ruth­less gang in­volved in a wide ar­ray of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, in­clud­ing mur­der, rob­bery, ex­tor­tion, rape, and hi­jack­ing. He joined forces with no­to­ri­ous gang leader Jim­my Chérizier, known as Bar­be­cue, be­com­ing a key fig­ure in the “G9 Fam­i­ly and Al­lies” al­liance, Haiti’s largest and most po­tent gang group.

WASH­ING­TON, No­vem­ber 16, 2023, CMC

CMC/nk/ir/2023