The “royal family” and two straw gun purchasers of the largest Haitian gang all pleaded guilty or were sentenced in the U.S. over the last six weeks as part of a federal case that may have set the stage for rival gang leader Jimmy “Barbeque” Chérizier’s rise to power in the Caribbean nation.
Chérizier and his gang federation “G9 Families and Allies” claimed responsibility for this weekend’s jailbreak of 4,000 inmates and the accompanying bloodbath, which has claimed at least nine lives since Thursday and forced the U.S. to issue urgent warnings to leave Haiti “as soon as possible” and Canada to temporarily close its embassy.
Before “Barbeque” was at the top of the Haitian food chain, there were Joly “Yonyon” Germine and Eliande Tunis, the self-proclaimed “king” and “queen” of the 400 Mawozo gang, which is notorious for its armed kidnappings of U.S. citizens.
The couple, along with two other suspects, were living in Florida and rounded up by U.S. authorities for the October 2021-armed abduction and ransom of 16 U.S. citizens and one Canadian, including five children as young as eight months, during a missionary trip to an orphanage.
Germine demanded $1 million for each hostage to assert his criminal enterprise’s dominance in Haiti, which has been overrun by warring gangs since then Haitian president Jovenel Moise was assassinated in July 2021, court records show.
Part of his goal for the armed abductions of the Christian missionaries was to secure his own release from a Haitian prison, according to court documents.
