Weapons tracking from the United States flow

The attack rifles and pistols arrived at Haiti hidden in two reinforced paper boxes, located between packages of food and clothes, on a cargo ship stacked with red rust charging containers.

They came from the United States, which is described by an expert as a “supermarket” that feeds the arms race between the gangs that brought chaos to the nation of the Caribbean island.

A BBC and BBC service has been achieved by the Fund’s trip, indicating how weapons from the United States reach Haiti. It reveals a series of laxative laws, absent checks and suspicious corruption used by travelers to bypass the United Nations ban.

Hayette police announced in April 2024 that they had seized the boxes. It contained 12 offensive rifles, 14 pistols and 999 ammunition cartridges.

A police photo clearly shows weapons from two different manufacturers in the United States.

The shipment had traveled approximately 1,200 km (746 miles) from Fort Lauderdiel, Florida, to Cap Haitian, north Haiti, on board the Rainer shipping ship.

The shipping container was filled in a warehouse square in Fort Lauderdale, according to a committee of experts from the United Nations, which was assigned to monitor the sanctions on Haiti and investigate the shipment.

Haitian in the United States often charge food that is needed and other things to the country.

A man named Anestin Predestin the Miami Herald told that in late February 2024, he was renting a space in the container.

He told the newspaper that the man who gave his name “Diamortino” put in two boxes saying that they contain “clothes” – and that he was shocked when he later learned that he had weapons.

BBC’s attempts to contact Mr. Prestin did not succeed.

It is not clear where the guns were purchased. Weapons are not manufactured in Haiti, and previous seizures included the guns purchased in Florida.

Sometimes, Florida was one of about 30 states, until 2024, private and unlicensed sellers can sell firearms, for example in arms and online shows, without conducting background checks. As a president, Joe Biden stressed these rules at the national level.

The United Nations Committee says that two Haitian brothers in the United States have used the “straw buyer” – individuals who buy on their behalf – to buy weapons in the seized charge.

Experts say this is a common method, which is often transferred in multiple shipments of small quantities, a process called “ants of ants”.

The Haiti police say the container was shipped by the Florida shipping shipping company.

Alliance International Shipping does not have ships traveling to Haiti, but buys a space on ships and sells them to customers like Mr Predestin.

The company’s president, Gregory Morwell, said in a statement to the BBC (BBC) that he provides empty containers to customers, but he does not interact physically with goods.

“Unfortunately, we do not have a viable way to prevent illegal charges,” he says, adding that the company is cooperating with the authorities and has many employees who grew up from Haiti.

“Many of our families were victims of armed violence in Haiti,” he added.

BBC called customs and US border protection to ask whether the shipment could be verified because she left the United States, but she did not receive any response.

The United Nations Committee said last September that the search operations in the United States have increased, but “the vast majority of 200 containers are heading from southern Florida to Haiti every week that was not examined.”

Bill Coleman, a former official with the American alcohol office, tobacco, firearms, and explosives (ATF), told the BBC that the outgoing shipment examination is “very scattered” and the size of the “incredible” shipments.

Hayette police say they discovered weapons in a “targeted research” of the container.

According to the United Nations Committee, Haiti Customs official, a chief of the fund, put one of the boxes that contain weapons in his car and was arrested and killed after a few days.

Police said they were looking for a man named Wilman Jean, who was named in customs data as a shipment of shipping – the person responsible for receiving it.

BBC understands from the sources in Haiti that he is a customs mediator, who is running and suspected of being associated with gang activity in the north of the country.

A former United Nations report says that the Hilate customs operations suffer from a lack of ability, corruption between senior officials, threats and attacks from gangs.

The BBC’s attempts to contact the hallway customs authorities for comment were not successful.

As soon as weapons fill in the shipping container, a wave of gangs has swept the hallway, Port or Prince.

Gangs liberated thousands of prisoners from the main prison, and obtained the ports of the capital and the airport.

In March 2024, Prime Minister Ariel Henry, unable to return from a trip abroad, agreed to step down.

5601 people were killed in gangs in Haiti in 2024, according to the United Nations. Its agencies say nearly the tenth of the population – more than a million people – fled their homes and half of the population faces acute hunger. Kidnapping and extortion are widespread.

Wilson, a skilled man from Port or Prince, was shot in his leg while trying to escape while he fought the gangs on the lands in his neighborhood.

“It was chaos, and everyone was running from their homes,” he told the BBC. “My leg stopped working. When I looked down, the blood was flowing.”

He now lives alongside hundreds of other people in a school that is used as a shelter.

Experts say the authorities do not have the ability to restore control, despite support from an international security force, including 800 Kenyan police officers.

Roman Le Cor, a Haiti expert in the global initiative against national organized crime, a non -governmental organization in Geneva.

The gang members are often formed on social media with high calcium weapons. Experts told the BBC that some of the weapons offered were definitely made in the United States, and others are likely to be manufactured there.

However, weapons and ammunition “continued to come,” says Mr. Le Cor, who is “a huge driver of violence and instability.”

To investigate the potential scale of trafficking from the United States using similar charging methods, BBC has analyzed the common customs data with us by the Cargofax charging platform.

We have collected a list of individuals currently suffering from sanctions on the alleged gang communications in Haiti, and others who were arrested in Haiti or the United States as suspected stores.

We examined these names against thousands of shipments from the United States to Haiti for four years.

In total, 26 people were named in the list as messages of 286 charges, which occurred before individuals were placed under penalties or arrest. It is not clear whether these charges contain weapons.

She was listed 24 times as a marine, the prophecy Victor – a former member of the Haiti Parliament, who was later placed under the United Nations sanctions and the United States to arm gangs and trafficking weapons. He was arrested in Haiti in January.

“First and foremost, the American authorities do not do enough,” says Le Cor says.

Mr. Coleman, a former ATF US official, says there is no legal commitment to arms dealers to report suspicious buyers.

He says that the changes to American arms laws “are really difficult to achieve politically”, but he wants to see voluntary rules for firearms sellers covering issues such as sales for suspicious buyers and information sharing.

Also, the registration of weapons – similar to the recording of cars – is in a few states and can be “really useful” if it is adopted on a wider scale, as Mr. Coleman adds.

Jonathan Louie, head of global action on weapons violence, says weapons are informed when weapons are smuggled under investigation and realize that merchants sell weapons to travelers.

“The manufacturers who cut off these dealers will put an immediate interruption of most of the methods of trafficking from the United States.”

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) contacted ATF and the American Ministry of Internal Security to comment, but it has not received any responses.

Mr. Le Cor says that the international scrutiny of the problem has increased, but there is no clear effect: “We know that we have a diagnosis, and we know what symptoms are, but we do nothing to actually treat it.”

Additional reports by Thomas Spencer, BBC investigate

Daniel Arses Lopez graphics, Jake Frend, Kate Jennour, Jerry Fletcher and Caroline Suza