By Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States announced criminal charges against Haitian gang leader and former police officer Jimmy "Barbeque" Cherizier and a North Carolina man on Tuesday for conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions.
The July 17 indictment, unsealed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that Cherizier and Bazile Richardson, also known as "Fredo Pam," engaged in a wide-ranging conspiracy to circumvent sanctions and raise funds for Cherizier's gang activities in Haiti. It alleges they solicited funds from members of the Haitian diaspora in the United States to help pay salaries of gang members and purchase firearms.
Richardson is a naturalized U.S. citizen who grew up in Haiti and resides in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
Cherizier launched a gang alliance in 2020 that brought together nine criminal groups in the area of Port-au-Prince known as "G9 Family and Allies," which later allied with its main rivals into a group known as "Viv Ansanm" (Living Together) - which now controls most of the capital.
Cherizier acts as spokesman for this alliance, which declared itself a political party at the start of this year, and which the Trump administration has designated a terrorist organization.
Human rights groups accuse its members of massacres, rapes, ransom kidnappings, extortion and arson. They control many of the main routes around Port-au-Prince, complicating the transport of food, aid and medical supplies.
Cherizier is also alleged to have played a role in multiple massacres that include the killing of over 70 people in an impoverished neighborhood of Port-au-Prince in 2018.
Despite the partial deployment of a U.N.-backed security mission and anti-gang efforts by Haiti's National Police, Cherizier, alongside other major gang leaders, continues to operate from strongholds in and around the capital.
Cherizier is already under sanctions by the United Nations, the United States, Canada and Britain, which say his leadership of the armed alliance threatens the peace, security and stability of Haiti.
Cherizier could face extradition to the United States, though Haiti's tenuous security situation could make that difficult.
The United States is offering a $5 million reward for information leading to Cherizier's arrest.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Additional reporting by Sarah Morland in Mexico City; Editing by Andy Sullivan and Leslie Adler)
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