'A criminal economy'

For years, as armed groups plunged Haiti into deeper unrest, human rights advocates and civil society groups have issued a clear demand.

Stop the flow of illicit firearms to criminal gangs — especially from the United States.

Now, as a surge in deadly gang attacks grips the capital of Port-au-Prince, their call is ringing out once more.

“Haiti has no weapons or ammunition factory,” said Rosy Auguste Ducena, a lawyer and programme director at the National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH), a prominent Haitian rights group.

“So the weapons and ammunition that circulate in Haiti and that sow mourning in Haiti are coming from elsewhere and, for the most part, from the United States.”

From handguns to semi-automatic and even military-style firearms, the range of weapons and ammunition streaming into Haiti goes largely unchecked amid weak state institutions, corruption and challenges in monitoring the country’s vast coastline.

“Today, if the United States in particular wants to help Haiti, they can help control what leaves their country,” Ducena said. “That would already be a very good thing.”

Haiti has faced years of political instability, spurred in part by foreign interventions as well as corrupt politicians and business elites who routinely use armed groups to further their interests.

But the situation worsened dramatically after the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise. The killing created a power vacuum, which in turn has heightened the influence of the armed gangs, approximately 200 of whom operate around the country.

According to the United Nations, the gangs now control approximately 80 percent of Port-au-Prince. They have increasingly made political demands, including calling for the resignation of Haiti’s unelected prime minister, Ariel Henry, who has promised to step down amid the pressure.

Experts also say the gangs now employ ever-more sophisticated weapons to advance their pursuits.

The funding for that weaponry and other gang operations comes largely from drug trafficking, kidnappings, extortion and other criminal activities. In Haiti, the UN found that more than 2,490 people were kidnapped in 2023 alone — and 4,789 homicides were reported (PDF), a 119.4 percent increase over the previous year.

In late January, the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Ghada Waly, addressed the proliferation of weapons in Haiti, issuing a warning to the UN Security Council.

“As long as the gangs continue to have access to very sophisticated firearms, they will remain capable of subjecting the Haitian population to a reign of terror,” Waly said.

More than 360,000 people are currently displaced by the violence, and the World Food Programme has warned that the country is facing a humanitarian crisis and the threat of famine.

There is no exact number for how many trafficked firearms are currently in Haiti.

A 2023 UNODC report (PDF) cited Haiti’s National Commission on Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration, which estimated that there could be as many as 500,000 legal and illegal weapons in the country as of 2020.

Al Jazeera could not independently verify that figure.

But Robert Muggah — the author of the UN report and co-founder of the Igarape Institute, a Brazil-based think tank — said that, while there is no precise statistic, “most firearms and ammunition trafficked into Haiti are originally from the US”.

Muggah noted that more than 80 percent of Haiti-bound weapons seized and submitted for tracing to the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) between 2020 and 2022 were made or imported from the US.

“Just over 50 percent of these were handguns and roughly 37 percent consisted of rifles,” he told Al Jazeera.

The trafficking of rifles to Haiti also has eclipsed similar transfers to other countries in the Caribbean, said Matt Schroeder, a senior researcher at the Small Arms Survey research group.

This includes semi-automatic rifles “that are very popular” in the US and can employ high-capacity magazines, he explained. In recent years, weapons bound for Haiti have included AR-15s and AK-47s, for instance.

Additionally, at least two .50-calibre rifles — similar to those used by military snipers — were seized on their way to Haiti. While it is unclear how many of these types of rifles are in the country, Schroeder said those seizures were “a red flag”.

“Those are really powerful weapons. They’re designed for long distance engagements and can hit targets up to a mile away. They are also used against vehicles,” he told Al Jazeera.

They use an ammunition cartridge, he added, “that’s nearly as big as your hand”.

Generally, Haiti-bound weapons that originate in the US are purchased by “straw men”: individuals who buy guns from licensed dealers but conceal the fact that the purchase is for someone else.

Muggah at the Igarape Institute said these purchasers target US states with “comparatively lax gun laws”, including Arizona, California, Georgia, Texas and Florida.

In addition to having major ports, Florida also has close cultural ties to Haiti. Located about 1,100km (683 miles) from Port-au-Prince, the Miami area is home to the largest Haitian diaspora community in the US.

Once purchased, the weapons are smuggled to Haiti by land, air and sea. “Haiti’s borders are porous to all manner of contraband, including illegal firearms and ammunition,” Muggah explained.

The country boasts a 1,771km (1,100-mile) coastline, and it shares a 360km (223 miles) land border with the Dominican Republic on the island of Hispaniola. It also has numerous covert airstrips, private ports and informal roads through which firearms can be smuggled in.

“A combination of political and economic elite, gangs and private security companies are procuring weapons from a variety of sources and bringing them into the country on clandestine flights, packed into shipping freight, and carried by mules across the land border,” Muggah said.

“With criminal gangs controlling key access and distribution points across the country — including ports, warehouses, and roads — they are able to move product with impunity.”

A recent criminal case involving the self-described “king” of Haiti’s powerful 400 Mawozo gang, Joly Germine, revealed how weapons trafficking into the country works.

According to the US Department of Justice, Germine directed gang members to transfer money to co-conspirators in Florida to buy firearms.

These co-conspirators purchased at least 24 firearms — including AK-47s, AR-15s and a .50-calibre rifle — at Florida gun shops while falsely saying they were the actual buyers, the department said. The weapons were then disguised as food and household goods and smuggled into Haiti in shipping containers.

Germine pleaded guilty in February for his role in the scheme and is awaiting sentencing. A co-conspirator who pleaded guilty last year was sentenced to 60 months in prison on February 28.

Germine’s 400 Mawozo gang has carried out violent kidnappings, including the 2021 abduction of more than a dozen US and Canadian missionaries. Gang members at the time published a video demanding a ransom. Otherwise, they warned, the missionaries would be shot.

Brian Concannon, executive director of the US-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, said “the fundamental problem” is that the US “is awash with guns, and it’s a very lightly regulated item here”.

The Small Arms Survey estimated that American civilians had more than 393 million firearms in 2017. That is one firearm for every 100 people and nearly 40 percent of the world’s civilian arsenal.

But Concannon acknowledged that the US government has been doing better over the past 18 months to try to stem the flow of weapons to Haiti. One result of that, he told Al Jazeera, is that traffic has been diverted to the Dominican Republic.

“Instead of people sending [weapons] to Haiti, because those boats were being inspected better, they were being sent to the Dominican Republic and then smuggled [into Haiti],” Concannon said.

One recent example of this circuitous route involves convicted weapons trafficker Elieser Sori-Rodriguez, 51. In February, he was sentenced to nearly five years in US prison for smuggling dozens of firearms and ammunition from the US to the Dominican Republic.

The Dominican authorities said the arms — which were allegedly shipped inside boxes marked as household goods — were destined for Haiti.

Still, US President Joe Biden’s administration has put new measures in place to try to tackle the problem. This includes increasing the penalties for straw-man purchases and smuggling, as well as imposing sanctions on Haitian leaders accused of providing support for the gangs.

Last year, Washington named a coordinator for prosecuting firearms trafficking in the Caribbean region, including in Haiti. The US State Department and the Department of Homeland Security’s investigations branch also are creating a transnational criminal investigative unit in Haiti “to facilitate investigations and prosecution”.

“This new unit will focus on crimes including firearms and ammunition smuggling, human trafficking, and transnational gang activity,” the US government said.

There is also a UN sanctions and arms embargo mechanism in place for Haiti, aimed at anyone who threatens peace and stability in the country. Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier — the leader of Haiti’s powerful G9 gang coalition — has been targeted under that measure, which was passed in 2022.

Meanwhile, last July, a Security Council resolution (PDF) urged member states “to prevent illicit arms trafficking and diversion, including through inspecting cargo to Haiti, in their territory”.

But according to Muggah, “the reality is that, so long as there is high supply and demand for firearms and ammunition, they will continue to be trafficked from the US to its neighbours, including in Haiti”.

He added: “This is not just because of the tens of thousands of firearms retail outlets in the US, but also the persistent appetite from the hundreds of criminal gangs across the Caribbean.”

In Haiti, weapons smuggling is compounded by several domestic factors, from a lack of functioning state institutions to rampant corruption and ties between gangs, politicians and businessmen.

The country ranked 172 out of 180 countries last year on Transparency International’s corruption index — one of the lowest scores in the world. And the Haitian National Police is under-resourced and only counts a few thousand officers.

“Weapons come into Haiti like you can bring in a bag of rice from abroad, like you can bring in a pair of sneakers,” Youdeline Cherizard, a Haitian criminologist, told Al Jazeera.

“I have to add that it’s a huge economic sector. It’s a criminal economy that works well.”

According to the 2023 UNODC report, while handguns sell for around $400 to $500 in the US, they can be resold in Haiti for as much as $10,000, depending on demand.

Cherizard explained that, while Haiti has laws regulating firearm possession in its 1987 constitution and later decrees (PDF), neither the judiciary nor law enforcement nor any government ministries have been able to control their spread.

“It is this delay of the judicial system and the police in controlling firearms that gradually increases the permissiveness, and permissiveness has become the norm,” she said.

She also noted that authorities have complicit in firearms trafficking. Customs officials, for instance, have been accused of helping armed groups get weapons that are shipped to Haiti.

Businessmen and politicians also have been implicated and profited from the flow of firearms, according to Haitian rights groups.

In one example, in late July 2022, the National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH) reported on a seizure of weapons and ammunition in Port-de-Paix, on Haiti’s northwestern coast, that arrived via ship from Florida (PDF).

A man accused of being involved in the trafficking scheme, as well as the ship’s owner, were arrested. But shortly thereafter, they were ordered to be released. RNDDH said it received information that they were freed after more than $200,000 was paid out to several members of the judiciary.

A former Haitian official also hinted at the involvement of prominent members of society in weapons trafficking.

Speaking to the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank at a popular bar in an upscale part of Port-au-Prince in December 2023, the unnamed official said: “People who collaborate with them hang out right here.”

“They are the ones who live between legality and illegality, who make contacts with the banks, who help bring in weapons."

While addressing the problem is indeed a tall order, Schroeder at the Small Arms Survey said that to tackle weapons trafficking from the US into Haiti, “every link in the transfer chain” must be addressed, from firearm production to their disposal.

That means working with gun shop owners to make sure they can spot the signs of a straw-man purchase. It also means ensuring enough resources are devoted to investigating and prosecuting trafficking cases, as well as screening overseas shipments.

Schroeder also said it is critical to ensure that weapons legally exported to the region are not diverted to Haitian gangs.

“You’ve got to quell the violence in Haiti. That goes without saying. That really is an essential part,” Schroeder added. “And then when Haiti is in less of a state of lawlessness, then you can start to beef up their control mechanisms.”

According to Cherizard, Haiti needs a government that will refuse “to enter into collusion with the armed groups and will commit and decide to fight insecurity”. The stakes, she added, could not be higher for a Haitian population “that is out of breath”.

“Today, it’s more than a political and insecurity crisis: It’s also a humanitarian crisis. There are places that are starting to run out of water,” she told Al Jazeera. “The population can’t take it any more.

“We’re really, really on the edge of — how can I say it — on the edge of a precipice.”