The Daily - Who Killed Haiti’s President?

Episode Date: July 22, 2021

A promise of a well-paying assignment abroad for retired Colombian soldiers. A security company in Miami. An evangelical Haitian American pastor with lofty ideas. Trying to join the dots in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse took us from the Caribbean to South America to Florida — and there are still plenty of questions.Guest: Julie Turkewitz, the Andes bureau chief for The New York Times, and Frances Robles, a national and foreign correspondent for The Times based in Florida.Sign up here to get The Daily in your inbox each morning. And for an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. Background reading: Interviews with more than a dozen people suggest that the suspects had been working together for months — but to what end is still mysterious.One suspect was said to have claimed he was “sent by God” to help Haiti.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, what we're learning about who was behind the plot to kill the president of Haiti. I spoke with my colleagues, Julie Terkowitz in Colombia and Francis Robles in Miami. Julie Turkowitz in Columbia, and Francis Robles in Miami. It's Thursday, July 22nd.

Julie, the last time we talked about the assassination of Haiti's president, Jovenel Moise, on The Daily, all that we knew was that a group of what had been described as highly trained men, many of them speaking English and Spanish, and some of them claiming to be American drug enforcement agents, walked into the president's home and, without any real resistance, fatally shot him. So where does your reporting pick up? So my reporting picks up when Colombian officials come out just after the assassination and announce that several of the individuals arrested by Haitian officials are not only Colombians, but Colombian former soldiers, many of whom have just retired. And I live here in Bogota, in Colombia, and I realized that I'm definitely going to be a part of this reporting. And so myself and my colleague Anatoly Kormanaev decide

that we're going to start to try and figure out who these guys are and why they decided to go to Haiti. What did they know about this project and what brought them there? What did they know about this project and what brought them there? We realized very quickly that we cannot interview these individuals because they are in Haitian custody and we don't know where they're being held or who has contact with them. But what we can do is talk to their relatives. Bueno, muchísimas gracias a todas realmente. Mi nombre es Julie. But what we can do is talk to their relatives. And so the two of us, working with two other reporters here on the ground,

begin to interview the wives and other family members of these soldiers. And we interviewed about 30 individuals and basically asked them to walk us through what the recruitment process looked like. And what did you learn from these dozens of people that you interviewed? So many of these men have very similar stories. And, you know, we spoke to many, many wives. And one who stuck out to us was a woman named Diana. Diana's husband is one of the soldiers who is currently held in Haitian custody. He's accused in this murder. And his name is Franco Castaneda.

And Franco is 39 years old. He lives in Cali. He has two children. And Franco has just retired from the Colombian military. And he is, like many of these men, desperate for work that can really help his family get ahead. And so one day earlier this year, Franco gets this message. And the message comes from his old military buddy named Duvernay Capador, who sometimes goes by the name Manuel. And Capador has this enticing opportunity. And he says he has a security job in Central America

for a mission that is backed by the U.S. government. The job is with an American company. And this job, Capador claims, is going to allow Franco to do the work that he's familiar with, which is protecting people from bad actors. And on top of all of this, this job, the recruiter says, will pay Franco $2,700 a month,

which for Franco and many of these soldiers is a life-changing amount of money. Why is that a life-changing amount of money. Why is that a life-changing amount of money? So Colombia has been engaged in a very long war with left-wing guerrillas, with paramilitaries, with narco-trafficking groups. And all of these men joined the military at one of the most dangerous points of the war in 2000. And they have now reached

retirement age. Retirement age in the Colombian military is after 20 years of service, unless you're going to continue to move up the ranks. And when they retire, they are given a pension, but that pension is very small, about $400 a month, which is really just above minimum wage. And so for many of them, working a security job abroad is the pinnacle opportunity. And so Franco takes this offer. And then he gets ready to leave. And so what, according to his wife, happens next once he accepts this security job? So in June, Diana and her husband prepare for him to leave the country. prepare for him to leave the country.

And Diana's husband travels from Cali to the capital of Bogota, and that is where he meets up with several of these men. And for many of these men, it was the first or second time that they'd ever left the country in their entire lives. And many of them don't know where they're going when they arrive at the airport. They pick up their tickets at the airport. And they discover that they're going to the Dominican Republic.

They fly to the Dominican Republic. They fly to the Dominican Republic. And while they're there, it's clear that these men do not believe that they're on a strict mission. Many of them take photographs of themselves at various tourist sites. They post them on Facebook. They appear to be on vacation. And a few days after that, they are gathered up by their bosses. And they travel by land to a new destination. And they end up in Haiti.

And they're in Port-au-Prince, and in Port-au-Prince, they are put up in what has been described to us as a compound, a sort of gated villa with a pool. And the next couple of days and weeks appear to pass in a fairly mundane way. The men are given English classes, and when they call home to their wives, they start saying small things to their wives in English.

They do exercises, and they take turns cooking, and they take turns working night guard shifts. And that's pretty much what we know about their lives. And the impression that the men gave to their wives is that they were training to do security for someone important. But they didn't really seem to know, or at least not to reveal to their wives what they were there to do. So they're kind of just hanging around in Haiti, and it sounds like they don't yet know who they're training to protect or what protecting this person will entail.

Exactly. They seem to be in the dark for a while. But what we know is at some point in Haiti, they're given this presentation. And we have an audio recording of that presentation that was passed to my colleague Anatoly from one of the wives of the soldiers in Haiti. And from the audio, we can tell that the Colombians are gathered around this leader.

And the leader identifies himself as being from the security company Worldwide Capital. And from our reporting, we know that Worldwide Capital is a Florida-based company that works with CTU, the company that hired Capador, the guy who recruited all of these Colombian soldiers. And worldwide capital, he claims, is this prestigious and experienced global security conglomerate that has worked on enormous projects all over the Colombians to help them rebuild Haiti. To, quote, make Haiti great again. Huh. And he explains to the Colombians that Haiti is in crisis and that these Colombians are going to mission, this greater-than-it's-some-of-its-parts kind of mission. And how in this recording do these ex-Columbian soldiers react to this idea that they, soldiers from Colombia, are there to help rebuild Haiti?

That's something I imagine might be a surprise given what they were told at the outset. The Colombians react very positively. And in fact, at one point, one of the former soldiers gets up at the end of the speech given by the boss and thanks the boss for allowing him and the other former Colombian soldiers to participate in this project. His former soldier says that he's here not just because it's a professional opportunity, but because he feels that it's an opportunity to help a country in need.

And he talks about the way that over the past couple of days he's been in Haiti and the poverty that he has seen. He said, it makes us want to cry. And then they all line up for a photo. So this is not at all sounding like a plot to assassinate Haiti's president. Far from it. That's president. Far from it. That's right. So when does Franco, according to his wife, learn what this is really about?

It's not clear when Franco learns exactly what the mission is. But Diana told us that she spoke to Franco the night of the assassination, and they had a very normal conversation. About the kids, about the family. And then just hours later, Moïse is assassinated. So that's Wednesday, July 7th. All that day, Diana could not get in touch with her husband.

She wasn't sure what was going on. And on Thursday, the day after the assassination, she hears from him, and he tells her that things have gotten complicated. And that he's hiding out in an embassy. And what we know now is that following the assassination, the Colombians scattered throughout the city. And some of them hid out in the embassy of Taiwan and were later taken into custody by Haitian authorities.

And among the people taken was Franco. taken was Franco. And in that conversation between Diana and Franco after the assassination, did Franco say one way or another whether he understood that their mission was to kill Jovenel Moïse?

In our interview, Diana says that Franco tells her they're shooting all around him and his commander is dead. But he doesn't mention the assassination of a president. And so what does Diana think happened? Does she think that her husband knew? Does she think he was kept in the dark? Diana thinks that her husband was lied to by the people who recruited him.

And that he was kept in the dark about what the mission of this operation was. All of the family members that we spoke to believe that their husbands were duped. They all believe that their husbands thought that they were going to do something good, that they were going to protect someone. And all of the wives think that their husbands were lied to by the people who recruited them. people who recruited them. How believable is that? That at no point did these ex-soldiers know that they were participating in an assassination attempt? I think that we as journalists need to be extremely skeptical of all accounts. And what we are hearing is only one side of the story. We're not speaking directly with the soldiers. And so we're receiving filtered accounts through

their family members. However, given the reality for many of these soldiers on the ground in Colombia and for their families, it is extremely credible to believe that before they left for this operation, they didn't know what they were getting into. And if the truth is that they were duped into this whole mission, you know, many of these individuals talked about using the money that they were going to earn in Haiti to pay off their mortgages, to put their children through school. One woman said that her brother, who's in Haiti now, had promised to buy a wheelchair for a family member. Another wanted to pay for cancer treatment. If these individuals, in fact, were duped into this operation, it's really sad.

It's really sad. And they're likely to spend many years in Haitian prison. Right. What is less clear is which of these men knew that it was going to be an assassination attempt and at what point did they learn? And that is what we're trying to figure out. Right.

Because in a way, these men are portraying themselves as almost victims here, right? People who were misled, which raises the question, if in fact they were tricked, who tricked them? If none of these men knew what they were getting into, who did know? Yeah. I think the answer to that question lies in the company that recruited them, CTU, which it turns out has major connections to Miami, Florida. After the break, I speak with my colleague, Francis Robles, about what happened in Miami. Frenchie, Julie Turkowitz, our colleague, just mentioned a strong connection between this security company that recruited these ex-Columbian soldiers and Miami, Florida, where I know that you were based for the times. What is that connection?

The company is called CTU Security, and they're based in Miami. It's a Miami firm. So the big question is, what were they doing in Haiti, right? What we do know so far is that there's a doctor in South Florida, a Haitian-American man named Christian Sanin, who hired CTU. And what should we know about this Dr. Sanin? So Dr. Sanin, first of all, it's unclear whether he's actually a medical doctor in Florida. We don't think he is, but he's a evangelical pastor. He was someone who was very engaged in social projects, particularly in Haiti, building clinics and things like that. The people who met him, who I interviewed, had great things to say about him as a person who was extremely passionate.

He cared a lot about Haiti. Do you know every Haitian has a passport? Do you know why? Because they get ready to leave the country. And why they want to leave the country is because they are discouraged. They cannot take it anymore. You know, there's even websites and videos where Dr. Sanam was talking about bringing democracy to Haiti and all of his leadership skills. But I want to tell them something. There is a hope coming in.

The new hope that they need to have to have a better life. He was going to be a person to solve problems for Haiti. With me in power, you're going to have to tell me what are you doing with my uranium? What are you going to do with the oil that we have in the country? Nine million people cannot be in poverty when we have so much resource in the country. It's impossible. He cared so much about Haiti that he wanted to bring a transitional government to Haiti and become prime minister should the presidency fall. And why did he see himself as somebody who could lead Haiti? I have asked that question seven ways from Sunday, and I have not gotten a straight answer to that.

I mean, it makes sense that you would think that this government would fall because you have to put yourself six, eight, nine months ago in Haiti, the streets were packed with protesters. You had a president in power where there was question as to whether he had overstayed his term. He had a very damaging report that came out showing massive amounts of government misspending, which the people on the streets were furious about. And you had more and more control that the gangs had over the streets. And people were really, really upset.

And they were directing all that anger at President Moise. Right. So it was reasonable to suspect that perhaps Moise's government was teetering on the edge and might fall. Right. You know, it's logical to think that the guy wasn't going to be able to continue in the presidency. It is not logical, as far as I can tell, for Dr. Sinan to think that he would be tapped. Why him? You know, he doesn't even live in Haiti. He was living in South Florida. But he told people that he had the backing of Democrats and Republicans in the United States. And that's a big deal in Haiti. You know, the United States kind of calls a lot of the shots

there. And he was kind of self-appointed that this is what we're going to do. And we're going to make this great government and we're going to build highways and roads and we're going to improve the schools and we're going to put a stop to the kidnappings. And so he starts holding a series of meetings to make that happen, to have everything ready in place if the government should collapse. These meetings were attended by a variety of experts, people who specialized in health, people who specialized in infrastructure projects. One of the people that I talked to for hours, he's a retired economics professor in Broward County, Florida.

His name is Parnell Duverger, and he attended at least a dozen of these meetings. and he attended at least a dozen of these meetings. Mr. Duverger himself prepared this $80 billion public works project for highways and bridges. And they were regular work meetings, almost like if it was a cabinet. And he was really proud of the work that he did. He was a proud Haitian working on something what he believed was really important with a person he believed was really passionate about bringing change and democracy and security to Haiti. connection to CTU that we started the conversation with. Hiring that company, which in turn hired these ex-Columbian soldiers. Did these experts know of that hiring? And if

they did, what was their understanding of why these ex-Columbian soldiers were being brought into the process? The economics professor was there for a meeting in Fort Lauderdale that took place in the spring where CTU gave a presentation and they talked about their expertise, you know, military equipment and bulletproof vests and security guards. And he didn't find it that unusual. You know, you have to remember, again, the Haiti context where kidnappings are through the roof, you know, pastors are getting

snatched in the middle of their churches. So the thought that a security firm would be coming in to provide safety for this new administration seems perfectly logical. Hmm. So to someone like this economics professor, CTU was just one more expert in the mix. That's right. Hmm. Did these experts, including this professor that you spoke with, did any of these folks express any skepticism about why this Haitian-American doctor of all people would become the leader of Haiti or whether he was really backed by the U.S.? Were they doubting any of this?

I asked Mr. Duveger that question probably 15 times. And I was really pressing him because I just didn't understand it. It's such a head scratcher. You know, like, why did you think that this guy was going to be prime minister? Why him? What's so special about him? Who does he know that tapped him on the shoulder to say, oh, you random evangelical pastor in Broward County, Florida. Why don't you come run this government? pastor in Broward County, Florida.

Why don't you come run this government? And what Mr. Duvalier said was that he presented himself as a person who had a lot of backing in the United States, that he was very convincing. And just to be clear, there is no evidence that the U.S. government was behind him. I don't have that evidence, no. And then at the ends of probably two or three hours of interviews, he finally said, you know what?

I think he's a con man. And I'm so embarrassed that I didn't catch it. Interesting. What was the reaction of all these experts that you've been talking to when Moise is assassinated? Everybody was shocked when the president was assassinated. And they were shocked several times over a few days later when Dr. Sanin is implicated and arrested as a potential mastermind of this whole murder plot. The police even said that they found DEA hats and ammunition in his house when

they went to arrest him. And the DEA hats are relevant because the assassins posed as DEA agents the night Moise was killed. Right. I have to say that all of this sounds very similar to the story we heard from Julie about these ex-Colombian soldiers, because in both cases, Julie, about these ex-Columbian soldiers. Because in both cases, we have groups of people recruited to do what they are told is going to be noble work, work that will profoundly improve the country of Haiti. And in both cases, they all insist that they knew absolutely nothing in advance

about a plot to kill Haiti's president. That's right. That's absolutely right. So the big question that I have, who's the duper? Who's the dupee? Where does the duping stop? So is Dr. Sanon also someone who got fooled into participating into a murder plot

so that he could serve as a very convenient patsy? Or is he the guy that fooled all these people? Right. Is there any evidence of that? I don't think there's evidence of the contrary. You know, you could have two parallel things that were taking place. You definitely had a doctor in South Florida

who was planning on transitional government, bringing in security teams, trying to finance public works projects. And you did have someone who entered Jovenel Moise's house in the middle of the night and murdered him. So are those two things the same thing? That's what I want to see the evidence that shows. But Frenchie, let's operate for just a moment on the journalistic assumption that sometimes So are those two things the same thing? That's what I want to see the evidence that shows. But Frenchie, let's operate for just a moment on the journalistic assumption that sometimes the simplest explanation is the most logical. And if we do that, it seems like all the evidence put together is pretty damning for Sanon. Here you have a man who assembles a lot of people to try to take over the government of Haiti, including a security firm that hires ex-soldiers with a lot of experience in combat. And that group of ex-soldiers marches up to the home of Haiti's president and ends up killing him.

of Haiti's president and ends up killing him. And so you can see why investigators might look at Sanen and say that looks like the mastermind behind this plot. I guess that's the big question. Is he the mastermind? Even if you take everything that has been said by the Haitian police as true, right? Sanen did all these meetings because he wanted to seize power and he did so through violent means. So let's assume that all of that actually happened. But there's so many unanswered questions around Dr. Sanen. Why didn't he take powers if that was his plan?

Did he take any steps to become prime minister in the wake of President Moise's death? The contrary to that is why was he still hanging around Haiti and didn't flee if he had just committed an assassination? Why did he still have the DEA hats evidence laying around his house three days later? How did these guys get in past the Haitian guards that were supposedly protecting the government? They didn't shoot a single bodyguard. How is that possible? I don't know. There's just so many questions. This isn't over. This is not over. On Wednesday, Haiti's outgoing prime minister, Claude Joseph, announced plans for a state funeral in honor of former President Moïse to be held tomorrow.

The prime minister said that the investigation into who plotted and carried out Moïse's assassination will take time. And he called for both caution and patience. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. Here's what else you need to know today. Four U.S. companies have reached a historic $26 billion financial settlement with dozens of states and cities over their role in an opioid crisis that led to thousands of deaths over the past two decades. In return for the money, the agreement would release the companies, the drug distributors Cardinal Health, Amerisource Bergen, and McKesson,

as well as the drugmaker Johnson & Johnson, from future legal liability tied to the opioid crisis. Today's episode was produced by Claire Tennesketter, Nina Potok, and Soraya Shockley, with help from Stella Tan and Rochelle Banja. It was edited by Paige Cowett, engineered by Chris Wood, and contains original music by Dan Powell. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.