Colombians held in Haitian president's assassination claim ties to Miami-area security firm
Source: McClatchy
BY JACQUELINE CHARLES, KEVIN G. HALL, ANTONIO MARIA DELGADO, AND BIANCA PADRÓ OCASIO
JULY 10, 2021 03:38 PM, UPDATED 36 MINUTES AGO
The Miami area is looming ever larger as investigators question the men held in the plot to assassinate Haitian President Jovenel Moïse.
Seventeen Colombians and two Haitian Americans from South Florida are in custody in Haiti. A person who interviewed the detained Colombians in Haiti told the Miami Herald that the men claimed to have been recruited to do work in Haiti by an under-the-radar firm in Doral called CTU Security. It is run by a Venezuelan émigré, Antonio Enmanuel Intriago Valera.
This screenshot from the Facebook page of Venezuelan emigre Antonio Intriago shows that he opposes the Maduro regime in Venezuela. Captured Colombians accused of participating in the July 7, 2021, assassination of Haiti’s president claim they were hired by Intriago’s Doral-based company CTU Security. Relatives of the detained say they were there to provide security for wealthy people.
. . .
Multiple sources in Haiti, requesting anonymity for their safety, have confirmed to the Herald that the detained men said they were hired by CTU, and several of the men indicated they had been in Haiti for at least three months, some longer. It is unclear if they knew or believed CTU leaders were aware of the assassination plot.
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Solages worked as a maintenance director at a senior-living center in Lantana until this past April 12. Little is known about the other man but documents obtained Saturday show his name may have been reversed in the Haitian proceedings and that it is really Joseph Gertand Vincent. His sparse public footprint shows he was indicted in 1999 for making a false statement on a passport application and given probation.
Read more: https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/investigations/article252700808.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
Very interesting, peppertree, and so credible!
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Florida license records show Intriago is state licensed to provide security services and carry a firearm. He has few other fingerprints in public records, except for one detainee filed against him in 2011.
Intriago has a website that shows it as a wholesaler and retailer of safety equipment.
“As a representative of large and important manufacturers of security and safety devices around the world, our goal is to provide first-class personalized products and services to law enforcement and military units, as well as to industrial customers, ”the company said in its About Us section. .
Known in circles of Venezuelan expatriates in South Florida, Intriago is said to boast of his police past in the South American country. Sometimes, said someone who knew him but did not want to be identified in the growing story, Intriago claimed to have connections or to have worked directly for US agencies.
One person claiming to have known him in Venezuela said Intriago worked in a small office in Doral, where he would boast of being a paid mercenary and special forces coordinator, but most people did not take these claims to account. serious.
The source, who requested anonymity to speak freely, said Intriago is also known to provide firearms, gun parts, and military and police equipment such as protective vests. bullets.
Public records show him in a small, gated, three-bedroom residence a few blocks from I-95 near Miami Northwestern High. Venezuela’s voter database shows he remains registered to vote there through the Miami Consulate.
Intriago’s Facebook page provides a bit of a timeline. Showing him appearing to arrive in the US around 2009 and initially working with alarm systems. His social media presence is largely apolitical, with the exception of a few posts against the Venezuelan government and one in favor of Juan Guaidó, the Venezuelan lawmaker whom the Trump administration has recognized as the legitimate leader of the oil-rich country.
More:
https://goodwordnews.com/colombians-held-in-assassination-of-haitian-president-say-they-were-hired-by-miami-area-company/
A botched coup in May 2020 in Venezuela similarly involved for-hire security men in Florida and some of the plotting traced to the 12th fairway of the Red Course at the Doral resort.
https://www.pressherald.com/2021/07/10/colombians-held-in-haitian-presidents-murder-say-they-were-hired-by-florida-firm/000
Incidental information regarding the Doral:
Why the Trump Golf Club in Miami is a flop
The Trump National Doral welcomes many professional golfers and events on four different courses. It is probably one of the most beautiful in the United States. However, he has some problems that we will explain to you.
A complex near Miami Beach bought at a good price
The Trump National Doral is located approximately 22 km from Miami Beach.
Miami International Airport is a 15-minute drive from the facility. In February 2012, the Trump Organization acquired Doral Resort & Spa when it was in bankruptcy (under Chapter 11) for $150 million. A great deal…! The name of the complex was then changed to Trump National Doral.
DonaldTrump has started renovation work that was completed in 2016. For the moment, the purchase and renovation were financed with $125 million in loans from Deutsche Bank.
. . .
The latest news is that bookings dropped in 2017
In fact, revenues at Trump Golf Resort in Miami have dropped since Donald Trump became president. We would have seen a drop of nearly 20% last year and this year will not be any better. According to internal sources, the complex lost 100,000 overnight stays. At the same time, Miami hotels grew by an average of nearly 5%.
Despite Trump’s relatively high popularity among registered Republicans, visitors, businesses and clients who hold conventions seem to be wary of booking events on the property. It is quite possible, according to many observers, that the President’s series of racist or sexist remarks and statements may well correspond to the fall of the Trump National Doral. What do you think of that?
https://www.dailynewsfortravelers.com/why-the-trump-golf-club-in-miami-is-a-flop/
The murky conspiracy against Jovenel Moïse involving a company run by a Venezuelan
July 10 2021, 8:03 am
PORT-AU-PRINCE (HAITI), 07/08/2021.- Police officers are guarding today a group of suspects of having participated in the assassination of the Haitian president, Jovenel Moise, in Port-au-Prince (Haiti). EFE / Jean Marc Hervé Abélard
Haiti's interim government said it called on the United States to deploy troops to protect key infrastructure as it tries to stabilize the country and prepare the way for elections following the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse.
DANICA COTO and JOSHUA GOODMAN // AP
"We definitely need help and we have asked our international partners for help," Acting Prime Minister Claude Joseph told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Friday night. "We believe that our partners can help the national police to resolve the situation."
The staggering request for US military support was reminiscent of the tumult that followed Haiti's last presidential assassination, in 1915, when an enraged mob dragged President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam out of the French embassy and beat him to death. In response, President Woodrow Wilson sent the Marines to Haiti, justifying the US military occupation, which lasted almost two decades, as a way to avoid anarchy.
But the Biden administration has so far given no indication that it will provide military assistance. For now, he only plans to send FBI officers to help with the ongoing investigation into a crime that has plunged Haiti, a country already ravaged by poverty and gang violence, into a destabilizing battle for power and a constitutional showdown. .
On Friday, a group of lawmakers declared their allegiance and recognized Joseph Lambert, the head of Haiti's dismantled senate, as interim president in a direct challenge to the authority of the interim government. They also recognized as prime minister Ariel Henry, whom Moïse had selected to replace Joseph the day before his death, but who had not yet assumed office or formed a government.
Joseph expressed his dismay that others tried to take advantage of Moïse's murder for political gain.
"I'm not interested in a power struggle," said Joseph, who took the lead with the backing of the police and military. “There is only one way that people can become president in Haiti. And that is through the elections. "
Joseph spoke as more details emerged of a murder that has increasingly taken on the air of a murky international conspiracy involving a Hollywood actor, a shootout with gunmen hiding in a foreign embassy, and a private security firm operating out of a cavernous warehouse in Miami.
Among those arrested are two Haitian Americans, including one who worked alongside Sean Penn after the nation's devastating 2010 earthquake. Police have also arrested or killed what they described as more than a dozen "mercenaries" who were former members of the Colombian military.
Some of the suspects were detained in a raid on the Taiwanese embassy, where they are believed to have sought refuge. National Police Chief Léon Charles said eight other suspects remained at large and were being wanted.
Link to tweet
The attack, which took place at Moïse's home before dawn on Wednesday, also seriously injured his wife, who was flown to Miami for surgery. Joseph said he has spoken to the first lady, but out of respect for her mourning he has not asked about the attack.
Colombian officials said the men were recruited by four companies and traveled to the Caribbean nation in two groups through the Dominican Republic. Colombian soldiers trained in the United States are highly sought after by private security firms and mercenary armies in global conflict zones because of their experience in a decades-long war against leftist rebels and powerful drug cartels.
In an inexplicable twist that would surely have exposed any highly sensitive mission, some of the men posted on Facebook photos of themselves visiting the presidential palace and other tourist spots in the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti.
The sister of one of the dead suspects, Duberney Capador, told the AP that she last spoke to her brother on Wednesday night, hours after Moïse's murder, when the men, hiding in a house and surrounded, tried to desperately negotiate a way out. of a shooting.
"He told me not to tell our mother, so she wouldn't worry," Yenny Capador said, fighting back tears.
Link to tweet
It is not known who the mastermind of the attack was. And numerous questions remain about how the perpetrators were able to penetrate the president's residence posing as agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, meeting little resistance from those charged with protecting the president.
Capador said his brother, who retired from the Colombian military in 2019 with the rank of sergeant, was hired by a private security company with the understanding that it would provide protection to powerful people in Haiti.
Capador said he knew next to nothing about the employer, but shared a photo of his brother in a uniform emblazoned with the logo of CTU Security, a previously unknown company based in Doral, a Miami suburb popular with Colombian migrants.
Francisco Uribe's wife, who was among those arrested, told W Radio de Colombia that CTU offered to pay the men about $ 2,700 a month, a negligible sum for a dangerous international mission but far more than what Most of the men, NCOs. and professional soldiers, earned from their retirement pensions.
Uribe is under investigation for his alleged role in the 2008 murder of an unarmed civilian that he tried to portray as someone killed in combat, part of a series of thousands of extrajudicial killings that rocked the U.S.-trained Colombian army more than a decade ago. .
CTU Security was registered in 2008 and is listed as its president Antonio Intriago , who is also affiliated with several other entities registered in Florida, some of them dissolved since then, including the Federal Academy of the Counter-Terrorism Unit, the Venezuelan American National Council and Doral Food Corp.
The CTU website lists two addresses, one of which was a gray-colored warehouse that was closed on Friday without any sign indicating who it belonged to. The other was a small suite with the name of a different company in a modern office building a few blocks away. An office receptionist said Intriago stops by every few days to collect mail and hold meetings. Intriago, who is Venezuelan, did not return phone calls or email seeking comment.
More:
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=es&tl=en&u=https://www.lapatilla.com/2021/07/10/la-turbia-conspiracion-contra-jovenel-moise-que-involucra-una-empresa-dirigida-por-un-venezolano/
On edit:
I just noticed what someone in Haiti mentioned in an earlier story IS true. This is the first time I've noticed their shoes. The earlier point noted by a Haitian is that "they are all wearing the same shoes!" Yikes. They ARE wearing the same shoes!
Gang boss wades into Haiti turmoil, sees conspiracy behind president's killing
By Andre Paultre and Sarah Marsh
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) -One of Haiti's most powerful gang leaders said on Saturday his men would take to the streets to protest the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, threatening to pitch the impoverished Caribbean country deeper into chaos.
Jimmy Cherizier, a former cop known as Barbecue https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/haiti-gang-leader-launches-revolution-violence-escalates-2021-06-24 who heads the so-called G9 federation of nine gangs, railed against police and opposition politicians whom he accused of colluding with the "stinking bourgeoisie" to "sacrifice" Moise this week.
"It was a national and international conspiracy against the Haitian people," he said in a video address, dressed in khaki military fatigues and sitting in front of a Haitian flag.
"We tell all bases to mobilize, to mobilize and take to the streets for light to be shed on the president's assassination."
. . .
Cherizier said his followers would practice "legitimate violence" and that it was time for "the masters of the system" - business magnates of Syrian and Lebanese descent who dominate parts of the economy - to "give back" the country.
"It's time for Black people with kinky hair like us to own supermarkets, to have car dealerships and own banks," he said.
Some of the magnates had been at loggerheads with Moise.
. . .
The detained Colombians said they were recruited to work in Haiti by Miami-based company CTU Security, run by Venezuelan emigre Antonio Enmanuel Intriago Valera, the Miami Herald reported.
More:
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/gang-boss-wades-into-haiti-turmoil--sees-conspiracy-behind-president-s-killing/46775968
Google translation:
7/10/2021
Haitians gather outside the US embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, amid rumors on radio and social media that the United States will issue exile and humanitarian visas, two days after Haitian President Jovenel Moise left murdered in his home. (AP Photo / Joseph Odelyn) - Photo: AP
. . .
SEMANA spoke with Giovanna Arelis Romero Dussan, wife of retired Army First Sergeant Mauricio Javier Romero, who died in Haiti, in confusing events in that country. The woman recounted the last moments she spent in the company of her partner before never hearing from him again.
“Mauricio, when boarding his flight at the airport, took a photo of his ticket saying that he was going to Santo Domingo and that was the information that we knew, we had no knowledge that he was in another country, we always believed in communications; he did not give details of where he was, "he said.
The Herald also reveals that the CTU company is registered as a Counter-Terrorism Unit, being also a federal academy and that it was created only in 2019, in the company's records also appears Arcángel Pretel Ortiz, a citizen who had also had a signature own security and that it was liquidated.
Intriago's company has permits to carry firearms and provide security services, and the media verified that it was also a supplier of other types of military and police elements, such as bulletproof vests, ammunition, spare parts and other types of articles. However, due to the firm's short history and lack of recognition in the state of Florida, it is believed that it did not have the financial muscle to train dozens of mercenaries who broke into Moïse's residence and assassinated him.
Faced with this type of information, the Haitian government minister, Mathias Pierre, asked the United States and the United Nations (UN) to send troops to protect its ports, airport and other strategic sites, after the assassination of the president.
“We think that the mercenaries [who are accused of the crime] could destroy some infrastructure to create chaos in the country. During a conversation with the Secretary of State of the United States and the UN, we made this request, ”the official told The New York Times .
In his speech he added that "the group that financed the mercenaries wants to create chaos in the country, attack gas reserves and the airport could be part of the plan."
https://www.semana.com/mundo/articulo/detalles-de-la-empresa-de-seguridad-en-miami-que-habria-contratado-a-los-mercenarios-detenidos-en-haiti/202117/
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