A Florida man is facing a five-year stint in federal prison for shipping arms to a notorious Haitian gang known for abducting Americans. Jocelyn Dor, formerly of Orlando, was tapped by the U.S. justice system for his role in an illicit firearms operation to arm 400 Mawozo, a gang that terrorizes Haiti with kidnappings and violence.
Dor, a 31-year-old Haitian citizen, coughed up a guilty plea to conspiracy violations implicating him in the export of at least two dozen firearms and piles of ammunition from the U.S. to Haiti, according to a U.S. Department of Justice release. His sentencing also includes a three-year supervised release post-prison. District Court Judge John D. Bates hammered down the sentence after Dor admitted to his crimes, including money laundering, last October.
Florida Resident Sentenced to 60 Months for Smuggling Firearms from U.S. to Violent Haitian Gang That Kidnapped 19 Americans https://t.co/KFkYliTqra @USAO_SDFL @FBIMiamiFL @ATFWashington @CommerceGov @FBIWFO @USMarshalsHQ @StateDeptDSS
— U.S. Attorney DC (@USAO_DC) February 28, 2024
The weapons were not garden-variety pistols, but high-power rifles, including a military-style Barrett .50 caliber, meant for doing battle on a grand scale. For the "straw purchases" of these death dealers, Dor lied to vendors, insisting he was the "actual buyer." The scheme ran from September to October 2021, until the feds closed in and Dor went off-grid, an example of how criminal supply chains bleed into American suburbs, or rather, flow from them.
Labels like "King" and "Queen" of this underworld fell to Dor's co-defendants, Joly Germine and Eliande Tunis, both of whom are now entangled in the justice system's web. Germine, the gang's boss operating from a prison cell in Haiti, has pleaded guilty and could face life behind bars upon his May sentencing. Tunis shared a guilty plea, with her fate being sealed earlier in the same month, according to the Justice Department's missive.
400 Mawozo's rap sheet is stained with the terror of taking missionaries, including children, hostage, flipping their safety for million-dollar demands per head. A handful of Americans felt the gang's grip in 2021 but ultimately wriggled free. The case, a cross-national effort, pulled in the FBI, ATF, and an assortment of agencies to unravel the threads that tied Florida to the gang's gritty grip on Haitian streets. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Karen P. Seifert, Kimberly Paschall, Paralegal Specialist Jorge Casillas, and Trial Attorney Beau Barnes led the prosecution battery, that charged and sentenced Dor, for feathering the nest of nefarious actors with firepower.
