Former US drug agency informant arrested in Haiti says source By Reuters

By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A DEA official said Monday that one of the Haitian men arrested for allegedly taking part in the assassination of the Haitian president last week was an informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Haitian authorities last week arrested two Haitian-American men, Joseph Vincent, 55, and James Solages, 35, and accused them of joining 26 Colombians in a brutal attack on Haitian President Jovenel Moise.

The official who spoke on condition of anonymity did not say which of the two men was the informant.

“One of the suspects in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise was a confidential source in the DEA,” a DEA official said in an email, saying the suspect had approached the DEA after the assassination and demanded his surrender. . “Those people weren’t acting on behalf of the DEA.”

The suspect was not an active informant at the time of the murder, a law enforcement source said.

A third Haitian-American Christian Emmanuel Sanon was arrested on Sunday by Haitian authorities and charged with being the perpetrator of the attack.

U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies are investigating why Haitian American men were involved in the killings.

A source close to the investigation said Solages and Vincent told investigators that they were translators from the Colombian command unit who had been arrested, but that when they arrived they found Moise dead.

Solages described himself online as a “certified diplomatic agent” and a former “commander-in-chief of bodyguards” at the Haitian embassy in Haiti. These statements were made on the website of a charity that ran them, and were amended on Thursday to remove them. Reuters has reviewed the archived version that remains available.

The Miami Herald mentioned an unnamed government official a decade ago when Solages briefly worked for a company that provided security to the Canadian embassy in Haiti.

“We are aware of allegations alleging a person who worked as a reserve bodyguard for a security company hired by Global Affairs Canada in 2010,” the newspaper said.

Florida records show that Solages has security officers and firearms licenses.

Few details about Vincent have been revealed.