Eighteen suspects in the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse have been extradited to Florida to face trial—but the people who paid for the hit remain in the shadows, and nobody in Washington is asking why.
The arrests, announced Sunday, bring the total indicted to 30. That's 30 people swept up in a plot hatched on American soil, executed by roughly 20 Colombian mercenaries, and orchestrated through a Florida-based private security firm called CTU. Yet after five years, not a single financier has been publicly identified. Federal prosecutor Jason Reding Quiñones posted on X that authorities will "follow the evidence wherever it leads, to those who financed it, facilitated it, supported it or committed crimes to make it possible." He added: "Five years later, we are still bringing defendants before American courts, and we are not finished." The FBI's Brett Skiles echoed the commitment. Talk is cheap. The money trail has gone cold by design.
Here is what we know. Moïse was shot dead at his private residence on July 7, 2021. His security detail did not lift a finger to protect him. That fact alone should have triggered hard questions about complicity inside Haiti's own government. Instead, the focus shifted quickly to the hired guns.
In May, a Miami jury convicted four men—Arcángel Pretel Ortiz, Antonio Intriago, Walter Veintemilla, and James Solages—of conspiring to kill or kidnap Moïse and providing material support. All four were linked to CTU. Prosecutors said they were lured by the prospect of lucrative contracts in the event of Moïse's ouster. Five others have already been sentenced to life in prison, including a former Colombian soldier, a former Haitian senator, a Haitian-Chilean businessman, a retired Colombian soldier, and a Haitian American.
The Guardian noted that the convicted men violated the US Neutrality Act, which prohibits private citizens from launching military operations abroad from American soil. That law exists for a reason. It is routinely ignored when the right people profit.
CBS reported that those remaining in Haiti awaiting trial include more than a dozen Colombian soldiers and a former Haitian government official. Neither outlet pressed on who cut the checks. CTU is based in Florida. The plot was planned in the United States. US courts claim jurisdiction because it was hatched on American soil. So where did the money come from? Who stood to gain from Moïse's removal? Those questions go unanswered.
Meanwhile, Haiti has collapsed into anarchy. The country has no president. Gangs control roughly 80 percent of Port-au-Prince. A UN-backed security force intended to reach 5,500 personnel had fewer than 1,000 as of July, drawn from Chad, Mongolia, Jamaica, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Sri Lanka. Haiti is scheduled to hold its first presidential election since 2016 in December—if security permits. Another intervention statelet, staffed by a patchwork coalition, propping up a country that Washington helped destabilize. Sound familiar?
The establishment press covers the arrests like a win for justice. The real story is what remains buried: the funding, the intelligence failures—or complicity—and the fact that a foreign head of state was murdered by contractors operating out of Florida while American law enforcement apparently noticed nothing until it was over.
Quiñones says they are not finished. The American public should hold him to it—and demand names, not just foot soldiers.
