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"400 Mawozo": The largest gang in Haiti, mainly based in Croix-des-Bouquets, Ganthier and in Port-au-Prince's Tabarre and Pétion-Ville. It has branches in Gros-Morne and the Dominican Republic and has a waiting list for aspiring members. It largely consists of deportees, former leaders of opposition groups, former smugglers and police officers.
The Gran Grif gang operates in the department of Artibonite and is considered one of Haiti's cruelest gangs, [5] with nine mass kidnappings attributed to the group between October 2023 and January 2024. [6] The gang was formed after former legislator Prophane Victor began arming young men nearly a decade ago to secure his election and control ...
On 1 February 2024, Joly Germine, the self-proclaimed "king" of the 400 Mawozo gang, pleaded guilty in a U.S. federal court to smuggling arms [20] such as "AK-47s, AR-15s, an M4 carbine rifle, an M1A rifle, and a .50 caliber rifle, described by the ATF as a military weapon," into Haiti, piloting the operation from a Haitian prison.
Crime in Haiti is investigated by the Haitian police. Since the late 2010s, the country has suffered from widespread gang warfare and civil unrest , including a massive prison breakout in 2024. It also suffers from extreme corruption and high levels of sexual violence .
On 2 and 3 March, armed gangs stormed the two largest prisons in Haiti, one in Croix des Bouquets, the other in Port-au-Prince. [12] More than 4,700 inmates escaped. [10] Police were reported to be undermanned and outgunned by the gangs, with only 9,000 operating in Haiti at the time of the fighting. [13]
One of the gangs fighting for power in the city is 400 Mawozo, which formed in 2016, and rose to prominence in 2021 for kidnapping several American missionaries. Since then, however, the gang has become the largest gang in Haiti. [1] In 2015, a man named Claudy Celestin created the Chen Mechan gang, with his alias of the same name. [2]
Since the government's de facto collapse in 2018, Haiti's capital of Port-au-Prince has become a hotbed of anarchic gang activity with brutal murders and spates of killing. [1] This was exacerbated in 2021 by the assassination of Jovenel Moïse, leading most of the gangs in Port-au-Prince to ally with G9 or G-Pep. [1]
Bel Air is situated in northern Port-au-Prince, under the control of G9 Family and Allies (G9 an Fanmi e Alye), a group of several gangs headed by Jimmy Chérizier. [1] On November 4, 2019, prior to the creation of G9, Bel Air was the site of a massacre perpetrated by Haitian authorities to crack down on anti-government protests.