BBC World Service of Global Service
BBCThe assault rifles and guns arrived in Haiti in two cardboard boxes, located between food packages and clothes, on a loading boat stacked with red shipping containers.
They had come from the United States, which an expert describes as a « supermarket » by feeding a arms race between the bands that have taken the chaos to the Nation of the Caribbean Island.
An investigation from the BBC and BBC World Service check the journey of the two boxes, showing how U.S. weapons arrive in Haiti. It reveals a chain of lax law, absent checks and suspicion of corruption used by traffickers to prevent a seizure of the United Nations.
The convulsion
Haitian police announced in April 2024 that the two boxes had taken. They contained 12 assault rifles, 14 guns and 999 ammunition cartridges.
A police photo clearly shows weapons from two different manufacturers from the United States.
The shipment had traveled about 1,200 km (746 miles) from Fort Lauderdale to Florida to Cap-Haitien to the north of Haiti, on the Rainer’s loading ship.
The shipping container was filled in a warehouse garden of Fort Lauderdale, according to a panel of united nations expert, which is commissioned to control sanctions in Haiti and investigated the shipment.
Haitians in the United States frequently send highly needed foods and other items in the country.
A man named Anestin Predestin told Miami Herald that, in late February 2024, he was leasing space in the container.
He told the newspaper that a man who gave his name « Divest » put in two boxes saying that they contained « clothes » and was impacted to know that they had later contained weapons.
BBC attempts to contact Mr. Predestin were unsuccessful.
It is unclear where the guns were bought. The weapons are not manufactured in Haiti and the previous convulsions have included weapons bought in Florida.
It was sometimes called the « pistol state », Florida was one of the 30 states where, until 2024, private and unlicensed vendors could sell firearms, for example in gun programs and online, without background controls. As President, Joe Biden strengthened these rules nationally.
The United Nations panel says that two Haitian brothers based in the United States had used « straw buyers » (individuals buying on their behalf) to buy weapons from captured shipping.
Experts say this is a common method, often with guns transported in various small quantities, a process called « ants traffic ».
Shipment
According to Haitian police, the container was sent by the Naval Company of Florida, according to Haitian police.
Alliance International Shipping is not the owner of ships traveling to Haiti, but he buys space for ships and sells it to clients like Mr. predestin.
The president of the company, Gregory Moraille, said in a statement to the BBC that provides empty containers to customers, but does not physically interact with the load.
« Unfortunately, we do not have viable means to prevent illicit shipments, » he says, adding the firm that cooperates with the authorities and has many staff from Haiti.
« Tragically, many of our own families have been victims of violence against weapons in Haiti, » he adds.
Leaving the US
The BBC contacted the US customs and border protection to ask -if the shipment could have been checked when it left the United States, but did not receive a response.
The United Nations Group said that last September, North -American research had increased, but « the vast majority of 200 containers from southern Florida in Haiti are not inspected. »
A former official with the Office of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives of the United States (ATF), Bill Kullman, told the BBC that the checks on the outgoing load are « very dispersed » and that the volume of shipments is « incredible ».
Arriving in Haiti
Haitian police say they discovered their weapons in a « directed search » from the container.
According to the United Nations Panel, a Haitian customs officer had put one of the boxes containing weapons in his vehicle and was arrested and plundered a few days later.
Police said he was looking for a man named Wilmane Jean, who is appointed to customs data as a recipient of the shipment: the person responsible for receiving it.
The BBC understands the sources of Haiti, who is a customs agent, is in the race and is suspected that it is related to the activity of the bands in the north of the country.
An earlier report from the United Nations says that Haitian customs operations suffer a lack of capacity, corruption between senior officials and threats and band attacks.
The BBC tries to contact the Haitian customs authorities for comments.
The power of gangs
Around the time the weapons were packaged in the transport container, a wave of band violence passed through the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince.
The bands released thousands of inmates from the main prison and blocked the capital ports and airports.
In March 2024, Prime Minister Ariel Henry, unable to return from a trip abroad, agreed to leave.
A record of 5,601 people died in band violence in Haiti in 2024, according to the UN. Their agencies say that almost a tenth of the population, more than one million people, have fled their homes and half of the population faces acute hunger. The abduction and the extortion are RUTS.
Wilson, a manage of Port-au-Prince, was fired on his leg while trying to flee as the bands fought against the territory of his neighborhood.
« It was chaos, everyone ran home, » he told the BBC. « My leg stopped working. When I looked down the blood was poured. »
Now lives next to hundreds of other people at a school used as a refuge.
Experts say that authorities do not have the ability to control -despite the support of an international security force, including at least 800 Kenyan police officers.
The bands have won territory in the last six months and now control at least 85% of the capital, says Romain Le Cour, an expert in Haiti at the Global Crime Transnational Crime Initiative, an NGO based in Geneva.
Band members are often posed on social media with large caliber weapons. Experts told the BBC that some of the guns shown were definitely in the United States, and that others would also be manufactured.
However, the weapons and ammunition « continue to come, » says Le Cour, who is « a massive driver for violence and instability. »
Hundreds of shipments
To investigate the United States trafficking scale through similar shipping routes, the BBC analyzed the customs data shared with us by the Subofax Shipping Data Platform.
We have collected a list of individuals currently under penalties for alleged band connections to Haiti and others who have been arrested in Haiti or the United States as suspicious weapons.
We have checked these names against thousands of US shipping records in Haiti for four years.
In total, 26 people on the list were named as a slogan for 286 shipments, which took place before individuals were sanctioned or arrested. It is unclear whether these shipments contained weapons.
The profane Victor, who was the Parliament of Haiti, who was later presented to the United Nations and the weapons of traffic trafficking and traffic weapons. He was arrested in Haiti in January.
Can the traffickers stop?
« First, the North -American authorities are not doing enough, » says Le Cour.
Kullman, the former North -American Officer of the ATF, says there is no legal obligation to weapons dealers to report suspicious buyers.
According to him, the changes in the United States laws are « really difficult to achieve », but he would like to see a voluntary code of conduct for firearms sellers covering problems such as sales to suspicious buyers and information exchange.
In addition, the guns register, similar to the car registration, is in place in some states and may be « really useful » if it is more widely adopted, adds Kullman.
Jonathan Lowy, President of Global Action on Pistol Violence, says that weapons manufacturers are told when traffic weapons are being investigated, and are aware of which distributors sell weapons to traffickers.
« The manufacturers who cut these distributors will put an immediate stop on most US traffic routes. »
The BBC contacted the ATF and the United States Department for National Security for comments, but did not receive answers.
Le Cour says that the international control of the problem has increased, but there is no visible impact: « We know we have the diagnosis, we know what the symptoms are, but we are doing nothing to heal it really. »
Additional Reports of Thomas Spencer, BBC Verify
Daniel Arce-López, Jake Friend, Kate Gaynor, Gerry Fletcher and Caroline Souza
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