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Five years after the high-profile assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse sent shockwaves across the Western Hemisphere, a federal jury in Miami has delivered a guilty verdict for four men charged with coordinating the deadly plot from U.S. soil. The September 2025 conviction closes a key chapter in the sprawling investigation into the July 7, 2021 attack that killed the sitting Haitian leader, wounded then-First Lady Martine Moïse, and exacerbated years of political chaos and instability in the Caribbean nation.

Arcangel Pretel Ortiz, Antonio Intriago, Walter Veintemilla, and James Solages were found guilty on a slate of federal charges, including conspiracy to provide material support resulting in death, conspiracy to kill a foreign official, conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States, and violating federal law by organizing an expedition against a friendly nation. Additional charges applied exclusively to Intriago include a separate conspiracy count, smuggling tactical equipment from the U.S. to Haiti, and submitting false export documentation.

Top U.S. law enforcement officials emphasized that the verdict delivers long-awaited accountability for a plot that used American territory as a launching pad for political violence abroad. “These defendants conspired to replace and ultimately to assassinate Haitian President Jovenel Moïse,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg. “Using U.S. soil as a staging ground for a violent plot overseas is a grave violation of our laws and, more fundamentally, our sovereignty.”

U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida echoed that sentiment, noting the plot was driven by personal greed and ambition that destabilized a close U.S. partner. “These defendants pursued power, influence, and profit through violence. They supported a conspiracy that crossed borders, destabilized a friendly nation, and ended with the murder of a sitting president,” he said. “The jury has spoken, and the rule of law has answered.”

Court documents and trial evidence laid bare the full scope of the conspiracy, which began taking shape in early 2021. The four men hatched a plan to violently overthrow Moïse, install a hand-picked replacement, and secure millions of dollars in lucrative government contracts for themselves after the coup. To execute their scheme, they built a cross-border network of co-conspirators across the United States, Colombia, and Haiti, recruiting 22 former Colombian Army soldiers and armed Haitian gang leaders to carry out the attack. To date, eight co-conspirators have already pleaded guilty to their roles in the plot, and six testified for the prosecution during the four defendants’ trial.

Over the three months leading up to the assassination, the group refined multiple plans to kidnap or kill Moïse. An early plot to abduct the president at his sister’s home, drug him, and force his resignation fell through, and a second attempt to kidnap him upon his return from an international trip in mid-June 2021 also collapsed. The group ultimately settled on a direct assault on Moïse’s private residence, ordering their team of Colombian mercenaries to storm the home and kill the president. Black-market weapons and ammunition were secured by co-conspirators inside Haiti ahead of the attack.

On the morning of July 7, 2021, Solages and the team of Colombian mercenaries, backed by local Haitian allies, carried out the attack. A specialized squad of former Colombian special forces operators dubbed the “Delta Team” led the assault, breaking into the residence and fatally shooting Moïse in his bedroom, while seriously wounding Martine Moïse. Ballistics evidence presented at trial matched bullets recovered from the president’s autopsy and the first lady’s surgery to a rifle used by members of the Delta Team. Thousands of pages of digital communications between the co-conspirators also confirmed the four defendants spent months coordinating and refining their plot.

Each defendant played a distinct, key role in the conspiracy: Veintemilla, the group’s financier, funded the plot with a $175,000 loan raised through fraudulent U.S. pandemic relief funds, including Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) money that was funneled through a co-conspirator’s bank account. Within hours of the assassination, Veintemilla contacted a co-conspirator and bragged, “the rat (President Moïse) is in the box.”

Pretel Ortiz, who went by the alias “Colonel Gabriel” and regularly wore counterfeit U.S. military uniforms and insignia, oversaw the plot’s tactical planning and coordinated directly with the Colombian mercenary team. Hours before the attack, he told his co-defendants, “I put my men on the ground and we are still fighting to reach the objective.”

Intriago, Pretel Ortiz’s business partner, managed day-to-day logistics for the plot, including paying co-conspirators and sourcing equipment and supplies. In June 2021, he smuggled bulletproof vests, radios, flashlights, and tactical goggles from Miami to Haiti for the mercenaries, and traveled to Haiti later that month to meet with the group’s local allies. On the eve of the assassination, he messaged co-conspirators, “We finally got the tools to do the work.”

Solages, the group’s on-the-ground liaison in Haiti, made repeated trips between South Florida and Haiti to coordinate with local gang leaders, source weapons and ammunition, and conduct surveillance on Moïse’s residence. During the July 7 attack, he accompanied the mercenary team and gave orders to kill every person inside the residence, reportedly saying they should eliminate “the dog, the cat, and parrot” to leave no witnesses.

All four men now face the possibility of life in federal prison. Federal Judge Jacqueline Becerra of the Southern District of Florida has scheduled sentencing for the end of summer 2026. The case was investigated by FBI Miami and Homeland Security Investigations Miami, with support from the U.S. Department of State, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security, and the Defense Department Criminal Investigative Service. A team of prosecutors from the Southern District of Florida and the Justice Department’s National Security Division led the trial.

A high-level diplomatic meeting held in Port-au-Prince on May 7, 2026, has cemented a new chapter of development cooperation between Haiti and the European Union, centered on a €340 million investment package slated for delivery by 2028. The gathering brought together Haiti’s Minister of Commerce and Industry James Monazard, Charles Jean Jacques, National Authorizing Officer of the European Development Fund (EDF), leadership from Haiti’s Investment Facilitation Center (CFI), Justin Petricks, Director General of the National Industrial Parks Company (SONAPI), and senior representatives from multiple Haitian government agencies.

Discussions centered on the EU’s Global Gateway initiative, a flagship infrastructure and development partnership that already maintains an extensive active cooperation portfolio across Haiti. Under the current programming period ending in 2028, the full €340 million allocation will be directed toward core priority sectors including broad-based development projects, public infrastructure, healthcare services, primary and secondary education, renewable and conventional energy access, and sustainable transport networks.

Beyond long-term structural development work, the European Union has reaffirmed its ongoing commitment to delivering emergency humanitarian support to the Haitian people, most notably through continuous airlift operations that deliver critical medical supplies to hard-hit regions facing ongoing instability and resource shortages.

During the talks, participants mapped out a range of untapped opportunities for expanded bilateral economic cooperation and foreign direct investment that are designed to boost Haiti’s domestic industrial development and enhance the nation’s global competitiveness. Attendees also underscored the central role of the Global Gateway initiative as a foundational lever for deepening economic ties between the Caribbean nation and the 27-nation bloc.

Minister Monazard opened the meeting by emphasizing that Haiti must take proactive steps to position itself as an attractive destination for targeted investment that drives inclusive economic growth, generates sustainable formal employment, and expands the country’s stock of critical public and private economic infrastructure. Moving forward, Monazard outlined plans to strengthen cross-institutional coordination mechanisms that will streamline Haitian stakeholders’ access to international financing facilities, and accelerate the delivery of large-scale structuring projects across high-priority strategic sectors: energy, agriculture, core infrastructure, and domestic manufacturing.

A new United Nations quarterly human rights report released in early May 2026 has painted a grim portrait of persistent insecurity across Haiti, confirming that more than 1,600 people were killed in gang-related and violence-linked deaths between January and March this year. As documented by the UN Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH), the official death toll for the first quarter stands at 1,642, making this the fourth deadliest three-month period recorded in the country since 2022. An additional 745 people sustained injuries in the wave of violence that has gripped the Caribbean nation.

Carlos Ruiz Massieu, who serves as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Haiti and head of BINUH, emphasized that even limited progress in stabilizing parts of the capital has not alleviated the daily suffering of most Haitian citizens. “Despite security advances in certain areas of downtown Port-au-Prince, insecurity is daily and unbearable for a large number of Haitians, and violence continues to spread beyond the capital, particularly in Artibonite and the Centre,” Massieu stated.

Recent operations by Haitian security forces have yielded small gains over the past quarter, building on trends that emerged at the end of 2025. Security pushbacks have slowed the territorial expansion of major armed gangs in the core of Port-au-Prince, and led to a measurable drop in organized criminal activity across several residential neighborhoods of the capital. But these limited gains have done little to curb atrocities in areas that remain under gang control, where armed groups continue to systematically violate basic human rights. Reported abuses include targeted assassinations of community members, widespread kidnapping for ransom, coercive extortion rackets, and deliberate destruction of civilian property.

The violence has increasingly spilled outward from the capital into rural and peri-urban regions, with some of the deadliest attacks recorded in the Artibonite department in late March. Between March 29 and 31, gang fighters launched coordinated, pre-planned assaults on 16 different communities in Lower Artibonite, a region that hosts multiple local self-defense groups formed by residents to protect their neighborhoods from incursions. The attack left at least 83 local residents dead and another 38 injured; witness accounts included harrowing details of victims being dragged from their homes in the middle of the night and executed execution-style in front of their families.

The BINUH report also documented widespread sexual violence perpetrated by gang members against civilian populations over the quarter. In total, investigators confirmed at least 292 cases of sexual abuse, including gang rapes and organized sexual exploitation, with the vast majority of victims being women and adolescent girls between the ages of 12 and 17.

Beyond gang-perpetrated violence, the report also raised serious alarms about alleged abuses by state security actors. BINUH received consistent allegations of summary executions and attempted extrajudicial killings involving members of the Haitian National Police, most of which were documented in specific neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince. These alleged incidents have left 33 civilians dead and seven others injured. Following the submission of BINUH’s findings, the Inspector General of the Haitian National Police has launched formal investigations into every documented case.

The full 24-page quarterly report on human rights conditions in Haiti covering January to March 2026 is available for public download via HaitiLibre, the local Haitian news outlet that published the initial report findings.