# Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in 2021 by a team of mostly Colombian mercenaries recruited through a Florida security firm, with the masterminds who ordered and financed it still contested

**No verdict.** The core event is documented beyond dispute: in the early hours of 7 July 2021, an armed team stormed President Jovenel Moïse's private residence above Port-au-Prince and shot him dead, wounding First Lady Martine Moïse. That the operation was carried out by a squad of roughly two dozen men, most of them former Colombian soldiers, alongside a small number of Haitian-Americans, is established by parallel prosecutions in Haiti and in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida. In Miami, several co-conspirators pleaded guilty and were sentenced to life, and in May 2026 a federal jury convicted four more, including the owners of the Doral-based security firm CTU that recruited the Colombians. What remains unresolved is the layer above the operatives: who ultimately ordered the killing, who financed it, and what the true objective was. Prosecutors described a plot to overthrow Moïse and install a handpicked successor for lucrative contracts, but no court has fixed the identity of the intellectual authors, and Haiti's own indictment was annulled in 2025 and the investigation reopened. This file reports the documented team and the convictions as fact, and treats the mastermind question as open.

Category: Government & Intelligence · Era: 2020s · First circulated: Within hours of the 7 July 2021 attack, as Haitian authorities announced a foreign hit squad and named Colombian suspects; the judicial record built out through US guilty pleas from 2023 and a Miami jury verdict in May 2026, while the question of who ordered it stayed open · Believed by: That Moïse was assassinated by a mostly Colombian mercenary team is the mainstream account, backed by courts in two countries. The competing claims about who was truly behind it, from the officials and businessmen named in various filings to the annulled Haitian indictment, remain contested and unproven.
URL: https://theconspiratory.com/theory/jovenel-moise-assassination

## Summary
Shortly after 1 a.m. on 7 July 2021, a heavily armed team entered the hillside residence of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse in Pèlerin 5, above Pétion-Ville, some of them shouting in English that this was a US Drug Enforcement Administration operation. They shot Moïse a dozen times and wounded his wife, Martine. Haitian forces killed three of the attackers and captured most of the rest within days; the great majority were former Colombian Army soldiers, recruited through a Miami-area security company called CTU. Prosecutions followed on two tracks. In Haiti, roughly twenty people including seventeen Colombians face charges; in Miami, the US Department of Justice charged eleven, won several guilty pleas and life sentences, and in May 2026 secured a jury verdict against four more. This file separates the documented killing and mercenary operation, which the courts have established, from the still-contested question of who ordered and paid for it.

## The claim
That President Jovenel Moïse was deliberately assassinated in his home by a team of foreign mercenaries, mostly former Colombian soldiers, who were recruited and organized through a Florida-based private security firm; and, in the wider and disputed reading, that the operation was commissioned and financed by powerful figures, in Haiti or abroad, whose identities the prosecutions have not conclusively fixed.

## Origin and timeline
- 2021-05: According to later US filings, organizers begin assembling the operation, recruiting former Colombian Army soldiers through the Miami-area firm CTU (Counter Terrorist Unit) and lining up financing. The stated cover story shifts over time from providing security to serving an arrest warrant to, ultimately, an armed assault.
- 2021-07-07: Shortly after 1 a.m., an armed team storms Moïse's residence in Pèlerin 5, above Pétion-Ville, with members shouting in English that this is a DEA operation. Moïse is shot roughly a dozen times and killed; First Lady Martine Moïse is gravely wounded and later airlifted to Florida for treatment.
- 2021-07-08: Haitian authorities announce that the president was killed by a foreign hit squad. Over the following days security forces kill three of the attackers and detain most of the others, identifying the bulk of them as former Colombian soldiers, along with two Haitian-American men.
- 2021-07-16: The Intercept and other outlets report that at least seven of the Colombian suspects had received US military training, and that the men were recruited via WhatsApp on the promise of roughly $3,000 a month, some believing they were hired to protect Haitian officials rather than to kill the president.
- 2021-07: Investigators identify Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a Florida-based Haitian-American doctor and pastor, as the figure the plotters allegedly intended to install in Moïse's place. Sanon is detained in Haiti; the true chain of command above the operatives is already disputed.
- 2023-01: The US Department of Justice brings charges in the Southern District of Florida. A grand jury eventually returns an indictment against eleven defendants, moving a substantial part of the case into a US courtroom as Haiti's own proceedings stall amid political collapse.
- 2023-06-02: Rodolphe Jaar, a Haitian-Chilean businessman who admitted helping fund and arm the plot, becomes the first defendant sentenced in the US case; a Miami judge imposes a life sentence despite his cooperation. Further guilty pleas and life sentences follow for other co-conspirators.
- 2025-10-14: Haiti's Court of Appeal annuls the earlier indictment in the domestic case, citing procedural flaws and insufficient evidence linking high-profile figures to the plot, and orders the investigation reopened with instructions to identify the intellectual authors beyond the arrested mercenaries.
- 2026-05-08: A federal jury in Miami convicts four defendants, including CTU owners Antonio Intriago and Arcángel Pretel Ortiz, financier Walter Veintemilla, and CTU associate James Solages, of conspiracy to kill or kidnap Moïse. Prosecutors said the aim was to topple him and win lucrative government contracts; the ultimate mastermind is not named.

## The evidence, claim by claim
- Claim: Moïse was killed in a deliberate, organized armed assault, not a spontaneous or lone attack.
  Evidence: This is settled. Multiple investigations and two national court systems treat the 7 July 2021 killing as a planned operation carried out by an armed team that breached the residence, shot the president roughly a dozen times, and wounded the First Lady. No serious account disputes that it was a targeted assassination.
- Claim: The operatives were mostly former Colombian soldiers, recruited and organized through a Florida security firm.
  Evidence: Documented. Haitian authorities identified the bulk of the squad as former Colombian Army personnel, and reporting by The Intercept and others traced their recruitment to CTU, a Doral, Florida company, often via WhatsApp on the promise of monthly pay. US prosecutors described the same structure, and the CTU owners were convicted in Miami in 2026.
- Claim: Courts have actually adjudicated the case, rather than leaving it to rumor.
  Evidence: Correct, on two tracks. In Haiti, roughly twenty people including seventeen Colombians have faced charges. In the US, the Department of Justice charged eleven defendants; several pleaded guilty and were sentenced to life, and in May 2026 a federal jury convicted four more. That judicial record, not speculation, is what this file treats as authoritative on the operation itself.
- Claim: The prosecutions proved who ordered and financed the assassination.
  Evidence: They did not, and this is the central limit. US filings described a scheme to overthrow Moïse and install a successor for lucrative contracts, and named financiers and organizers among the operational plot. But no court has conclusively fixed the identity of the ultimate intellectual authors, and the Miami trial itself, in the words of Haitian and US press, left the who-ordered-it question hanging. Attribution above the operatives remains unproven.
- Claim: The plot was simply about installing Christian Sanon as president.
  Evidence: That is one theory the prosecutions advanced, but it is contested and incomplete. Sanon, a Florida-based Haitian-American pastor, was identified as the intended replacement, yet he is being tried separately for health reasons and has not been convicted, and observers have long doubted that a figure with his limited resources and profile could have been the true financier or organizer. The prosecutions themselves point to a broader network whose apex is not established.
- Claim: A single named Haitian official was the real mastermind.
  Evidence: Several names have circulated, most prominently Joseph Félix Badio, a former Haitian anti-corruption official whom defense lawyers cast as a key organizer and who was arrested in Haiti in 2023. Others have pointed higher. None of these attributions has been converted into a settled judicial finding of ultimate authorship, and Haiti's Court of Appeal annulled the domestic indictment in 2025 precisely for failing to establish such links. This file reports these as allegations, not facts.
- Claim: The killing plunged Haiti into deeper crisis regardless of who ordered it.
  Evidence: Confirmed, and not seriously contested. Moïse's assassination left Haiti without a sitting president or a functioning constitutional line of succession, accelerating the collapse of state authority, the surge of armed gangs, and years of political paralysis. That consequence is independent of the unresolved question of ultimate responsibility.

## Why people believe it
- The operational core is documented, not speculative. A president killed in his own home by an identifiable team of foreign mercenaries, most of them traceable to a named Florida company, gives every theory about the case an unusually solid factual floor to build on.
- There are real convictions to cite. Unlike many political-assassination stories, this one can point to guilty pleas, life sentences, and a jury verdict in a US federal court, so people are anchoring to a judicial record rather than to pure rumor.
- The gap between the operatives and the money looks glaring. The visible plotters, a security-firm owner, a mortgage broker, low-paid ex-soldiers, seem too small to have conceived and financed a presidential assassination on their own, which naturally drives the search for a hidden hand.
- The aftermath rewarded someone. The killing removed a sitting president and reshuffled power in a country of intense factional and business rivalries, so the assumption that a powerful interest stood behind it feels, to many Haitians, self-evident even where the evidence stops short.

## Open questions
- Who ordered and financed the assassination has not been established in law. The prosecutions reached organizers and operatives, but the identity of the ultimate intellectual authors, the people who conceived and paid for the operation, remains formally open, and the Miami trial left that question unresolved.
- The stated motive does not fully add up. The theory that the aim was to install Christian Sanon and win government contracts explains part of the plot, but many observers doubt the visible cast had the resources or reach to plan a presidential killing, suggesting a larger network whose apex is not identified.
- The role of named Haitian officials is disputed. Figures such as Joseph Félix Badio have been cast as organizers, and others have been alleged to sit higher up, but Haiti's Court of Appeal annulled the domestic indictment in 2025 for failing to establish such links, and no settled finding of high-level authorship exists.
- The two prosecutions may never fully converge. With Haiti's investigation reopened amid state collapse and the US case focused on the conspiracy's American footprint, it is uncertain whether any court will ever produce a complete, agreed account of who was behind the killing.

## Latest developments
- 2026-05-08T12:00Z: A federal jury in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida convicted four defendants, CTU owners Antonio Intriago and Arcángel Pretel Ortiz, financier Walter Veintemilla, and CTU associate James Solages, on conspiracy and material-support charges tied to the plot to kill or kidnap Moïse, according to the Department of Justice. The verdict, which followed roughly nine weeks of testimony, brought to ten the number of defendants convicted in the US case. It reinforces the documented account of the mercenary operation and its Florida recruiters, but no court identified who ultimately ordered or financed the assassination, so the mastermind question, and this file's rating, are unchanged. (source: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/four-defendants-convicted-plot-kill-haitian-president-jovenel-moise)
- 2026-07-07T12:00Z: On the fifth anniversary of the assassination, relatives, supporters, and Haitian officials held memorial ceremonies and renewed calls for justice, according to The Haitian Times, which reported that Haiti's own investigation, now before a sixth judge, has still produced no trial or convictions. The contrast between the US convictions and the stalled domestic case underscores that both tracks remain active and that the question of who ordered the killing is still unresolved in law. (source: https://haitiantimes.com/2026/07/08/haitians-renew-call-for-justice-jovenel-moise-assassination/)

## Sources
- Four Defendants Convicted in Plot to Kill Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs (2026): https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/four-defendants-convicted-plot-kill-haitian-president-jovenel-moise
- Four Florida Men Arrested in Plot to Kill Haitian President, Grand Jury Returns Indictment Against 11, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs (2023): https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/four-florida-men-arrested-plot-kill-haitian-president-grand-jury-returns-indictment-against
- Colombian Mercenaries and the Assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, The Intercept (2021): https://theintercept.com/2021/07/26/colombian-mercenaries-haiti-jovenel-moise-assassination/
- At Least Seven Colombians in Haiti Assassination Received U.S. Training, The Intercept (2021): https://theintercept.com/2021/07/16/haiti-assassination-colombia-us-military/
- Four convicted in US related to killing of Haitian President Jovenel Moise, Al Jazeera (2026): https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/5/8/four-convicted-in-us-related-to-killing-of-haitian-president-jovenel-moise
- Who ordered Jovenel Moïse killed? Assassination trial leaves question hanging, The Haitian Times (2026): https://haitiantimes.com/2026/05/04/haiti-president-moise-assassination-trial-miami/
- Miami Judge Orders Life Sentence For First Defendant Involved In Haitian President's Assassination, Forbes (2023): https://www.forbes.com/sites/katherinehamilton/2023/06/02/miami-judge-orders-life-sentence-for-first-defendant-involved-in-haitian-presidents-assassination/
- Haitian-Chilean Citizen Sentenced to Federal Prison in Connection with Plot to Kill Haitian President, U.S. Department of Justice, Southern District of Florida (2023): https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdfl/pr/haitian-chilean-citizen-sentenced-federal-prison-connection-plot-kill-haitian
- The assassination of Haiti's president exposes role of ex-Colombian soldiers, NBC News (2021): https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/assassination-haitis-president-exposes-role-ex-colombian-soldiers-rcna1491
- Assassination of Jovenel Moïse, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Jovenel_Mo%C3%AFse

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