Joly Germine, 32, of Croix-des-Bouquets, Haiti, has been found guilty by a federal jury in the District of Columbia for his role in orchestrating the 2021 hostage taking of 16 American citizens, including five children, and holding them hostage for 62 days.
The verdict was announced by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro and FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Ryan James of the Miami Field Office.
Following a 10-day trial in U.S. District Court, the jury found Germine guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit hostage taking and 16 counts of hostage taking of a U.S. national for ransom.
The former leader and self-described “king” of the notoriously violent Haitian gang known as 400 Mawozo, Germine previously pleaded guilty to his role in a gun trafficking conspiracy that smuggled firearms to Haiti in violation of U.S. export laws and the laundering of the gang’s funds derived from ransoms paid for other U.S. hostage victims.
For those crimes, he was sentenced in June 2024 to 35 years in federal prison.
Germine’s gang, 400 Mawozo, operated in the Croix-des-Bouquets area to the east of the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince.
Germine directed the gang’s operations from prison using unmonitored cell phones and was constantly in touch with other 400 Mawazo leaders, most of whom were his relatives.
Germine controlled the gang’s finances, supplied the gang’s weapons, and otherwise directed operations.
On October 16, 2021, 17 Mennonite missionaries from Christian Aid Ministries, an Ohio-based missionary aid organisation, were returning from visiting an orphanage when they were stopped by 400 Mawozo’s armed and masked soldiers.
Many of the gang’s soldiers were brandishing firearms supplied by Germine.
The group included 12 adults and five children, including a six-year-old, a three-year-old, and an eight-month-old. Sixteen of the victims were U.S. citizens, and one was a Canadian citizen.
The gang drove the missionaries to a field and robbed them, while consulting by phone with Germine, their leader. The gang took the missionaries to a building in a rural area, held them at gunpoint, and demanded a ransom of $1 million each for their return.
In postings on social media, the gang threatened to kill all the hostages if the ransom was not paid. Early on in the negotiations, senior gang leadership said that, in lieu of the ransom monies, 400 Mawozo would accept Germine’s release from prison in exchange for the hostages.
On November 20, 2021, two hostages were released after one was suffering from life-threatening health conditions.
On December 5, 2021, 400 Mawozo released three of the hostages, two adults who had significant medical issues and the six-year-old child, after receiving a $350,000 ransom payment.
Though the gang had stated they would release all the hostages for the ransom paid, at Germine’s direction, the gang thereafter refused to release any more hostages.
On December 16, 2021, the remaining hostages escaped under the cover of darkness while their captors were distracted, walking for five hours through the Haitian bush until they were out of the gang’s territory.
They were received by the FBI, which had deployed to Haiti and arranged to immediately transport them from Haiti before the gang could respond to their escape. In total, most of the missionaries were held for 62 days.
The evidence at trial showed that Germine had directed the initial kidnapping, had arranged for the locations where hostages were held, and set the $17 million ransom demand, knowing it was too high to be paid and would result in the Haitian government negotiating his release from prison in exchange for the missionaries.
The evidence also showed that Germine was involved in or consulted on the decisions to release victims.
“This conviction demonstrates the FBI’s determination to follow the evidence wherever it leads and to work our way up to the leaders of criminal plots wherever they are. Haitian gang leader and convicted kidnapper Joly Germine found out he was not beyond the reach of the FBI,” said FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge James. “Neither time nor distance will weaken our resolve. We will use all tools available and go to farthest reaches of the globe to bring to justice those who kidnap Americans.”
