Canada is adding three members of the Haitian elite to its list of people targeted by sanctions because of their “illicit financial and operational support for armed gangs”.
Gilbert Bigio, Reynol Deeb and Sherif Abdallah will be prohibited from transactions with Canadian financial institutions.
Any assets they hold in Canada are thereby frozen.
“Canada has reason to believe that these individuals are using their status as highly visible members of Haiti’s economic elite to protect and enable the illegal activities of armed criminal gangs, including through money laundering and other acts corruption,” Global Affairs said in a statement Monday morning.
The three men cited are among the richest people in Haiti.
Gilbert Bigio, described by various media as “the only Haitian billionaire”, is an industrialist who made his fortune in steel. Bigiot was quoted in the Pandora Papers, and according to the “Miami Herald”, would have used front companies to avoid his tax obligations.
Reynol Deeb and Sherif Abdallah are other businessmen with ties suspected of interfering in the politics of the Caribbean country and Haitian organized crime.
“These people must stop providing funds and weapons to criminal gangs in Haiti,” continued the federal ministry.
Haiti is going through a serious humanitarian crisis, which has notably led to a re-emergence of cholera. Canada also denounces “unspeakable acts of violence” by criminal gangs, “including widespread sexual violence”.
Former President Jovenel Moïse, assassinated in July 2021, compiled a list of political and criminal people linked to drug trafficking on the island at the time of his death.
“The document was part of a larger series of clashes between Mr. Moïse and powerful political and business figures, some of whom were suspected of drug and arms trafficking,” the American newspaper wrote in November. 2021.