Jean-Bertrand Aristide was a modern-day Moses to Haiti's poor masses, a former Catholic priest who rose to the presidency by promising to wash away the country's bloody and corrupt past. But since his ouster as president in 2004, U.S. authorities have been investigating detailed accounts alleging that Aristide and several top aides sought and took millions of dollars in bribes from drug traffickers in Haiti, The Miami Herald has learned.So far, a federal grand jury probe in Miami has led to 22 convictions of mostly Haitian drug traffickers, ex-police officers and a high-ranking politician close to Aristide. Although the exiled former president is a main target of the ongoing investigation, he has not been charged. The allegations against the ex-president come from numerous sources, but the evidence has not risen to a level to press a case against Aristide, say U.S. law enforcement officials, who have been hampered by a lack of financial records.
Still, The Miami Herald has learned from interviews with about 20 law enforcement officials, defense lawyers and others involved in the case that Aristide has been accused of being at the center of his country's narco-trafficking and money-laundering activities from 2001 to 2004. Authorities have gathered evidence, including testimony by cooperating defendants convicted in the case, alleging that:
• Soon after he took office in early 2001, Aristide held a meeting at his Port-au-Prince home with his presidential security chief, two government security advisors, the national police chief and a district commander to organize a scheme to shake down Colombian and Haitian drug smugglers for kickbacks for both his personal and political activities.
• Drug traffickers bribed Aristide to turn a blind eye to shipments of Colombian cocaine through Haiti, directly paying him hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash during regular visits to his home.
• Convicted drug kingpin Beaudouin ''Jacques'' Ketant personally delivered $500,000 a month in a suitcase to Aristide's home, he told authorities. He said the suitcase had a combination lock set to 7-7-7 at Aristide's request because that was his favorite number.
• Traffickers gave Aristide $200,000 to buy a helicopter in 2002, but the president pocketed the money and instead used government funds to rent a helicopter from Miami-based Biscayne Helicopters. Those same traffickers also bought a $75,000 ambulance in Miami that was shipped to Haiti for the president's private charitable Aristide Foundation.
• Traffickers spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on carnival festivities in February 2002 that were arranged by the Aristide government. They also paid for some of Aristide's July birthday celebrations, his Lavalas Family Party and his foundation.
• At Aristide's direction, some of the traffickers' bribes helped buy weapons smuggled into Haiti to equip national police officers as well as pro-Aristide street gangs that harassed his opponents during his second term as president, between 2001 and 2004, according to former Haitian law enforcement officials and drug traffickers who are cooperating with U.S. investigators.