Germine Joly, once one of the most powerful gang leaders in Haiti — even when he was behind prison bars — has been found guilty of kidnapping 16 U.S. citizens who worked in Haiti as missionaries.
The missionaries were abducted in 2021, and 12 members of the group from Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries, including a Canadian national, were held for two months. They won their freedom only after a $350,000 ransom was paid and Joly’s co-gang leader, Lanmo Sanjou, set up their release to look like an escape to avoid his fellow gang member’s wrath.
Joly, known as “Yonyon,” took the stand in his defense and refuted any involvement with the 400 Mawozo gang. On Friday he was found guilty by a federal jury in the District of Columbia for his role in orchestrating the hostage taking.
The verdict was announced by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro and FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Ryan James of the Miami Field Office.
“This office will fight aggressively to protect Americans who are taken hostage and abused, and to uphold the religious freedoms of our people, including Christians,” the Justice Department the Miami Field Office of the FBI said in a statement.
“As the evidence demonstrated, Joly Germine orchestrated a plot that leveraged American Christian missionaries as bargaining chips to try to secure his own release from a Haitian prison,” Pirro said. “When you commit crimes against Americans in other countries, it makes no difference where you are — we are coming for you. Justice may not always be swift but it is certain.”
James said Joly’s conviction “demonstrates the FBI’s determination to follow the evidence wherever it leads and to work our way up to the leaders of criminal plots wherever they are.”
Joly, 32, “found out he was not beyond the reach of the FBI,” James said. “Neither time nor distance will weaken our resolve. We will use all tools available and go to farthest reaches of the globe to bring to justice those who kidnap Americans.”
Joly was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit hostage taking and 16 counts of hostage taking of a U.S. national for ransom.
The self-described “king” of the notoriously violent Haitian gang known as 400 Mawozo, Joly previously pleaded guilty to his role in a gun trafficking conspiracy that smuggled firearms to Haiti in violation of U.S. export laws and the laundering of the gang’s funds derived from ransoms paid for other U.S. hostage victims. He was sentenced in June to 35 years in federal prison.
The 400 Mawozo is part of the powerful Viv Ansanm gang coalition and controls areas in the Croix-des-Bouquets commune to the east of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince.
Joly directed the gang’s operations from inside a Haitian prison using unmonitored cell phones and was constantly in touch with other 400 Mawozo leaders, most of whom were his relatives. He controlled the gang’s finances, supplied its weapons and otherwise directed operations.
On Oct. 16, 2021, the 17 Mennonite missionaries from Christian Aid Ministries were returning from visiting an orphanage when they were stopped by 400 Mawozo’s armed, masked soldiers. Many of the gang’s soldiers were brandishing firearms supplied by Joly, prosecutors argued in the trial. The kidnapped group comprised 12 adults and five children, including a 6-year-old, a 3-year-old, and an 8-month-old.
The gang drove the missionaries to a field and robbed them, while consulting by phone with Joly, prosecutors said.
The gang took the missionaries to a building in a rural area, held them at gunpoint, and demanded ransom of $1 million each for their return, the Justice Department said. “In postings on social media, the gang threatened to kill all the hostages if the ransom was not paid.”
The FBI Miami Field Office investigated the case, with assistance from Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and other federal agencies.
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