A powerful Haitian gang leader has been charged by U.S. prosecutors with ordering the kidnapping of an American couple that left a woman dead, authorities said Tuesday.
The U.S. attorney's office for the District of Columbia announced a new indictment against Vitel’homme Innocent, the leader of the Kraze Barye gang, in connection with the Oct. 2022 kidnapping in Haiti of Jean Franklin and Marie Odette Franklin. Marie Franklin was shot and killed in the kidnapping. Her husband, Jean, was held for 21 days.
Authorities are offering a reward of up to $1 million for information leading to his arrest. He was previously charged in connection to the 2021 kidnappings of Christian missionaries.
He has been charged with conspiracy to commit hostage taking resulting in death, aiding and abetting hostage taking and attempted hostage taking resulting in death by the U.S. Justice Department.
Get South Florida local news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC South Florida newsletters.
Gang warfare has increasingly plagued Haiti since the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. Gang members regularly kill, rape and hold residents for ransom. Some are held for months.
A local nonprofit has documented over 500 kidnappings since January, a significant rise over previous years for the country of more than 11 million people.
In August, kidnappers in Haiti released a U.S. nurse and her daughter, nearly two weeks after they were snatched at gunpoint from the campus of a Christian-run school near Port-au-Prince.
Local
The July 27 abduction of Alix Dorsainvil and her child happened the very day the U.S. State Department warned U.S. citizens to leave “as soon as possible” and ordered the departure of nonemergency U.S. government personnel from Haiti because of security concerns. The country remains under a U.S. “do not travel” advisory.
Earlier this year, a couple from Broward was kidnapped in Haiti and later freed. Jean-Dickens Toussaint and wife Abigail Michael Toussaint and a third person traveling with them had been kidnapped on March 18 in the capital of Port-au-Prince before their release in April.
