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Smuggling, ill-gotten gains and suspected ties to gangs: In Haiti, the shady dealings of former senator Rony Célestin
In 2019, Haitian journalist Néhémie Joseph, originally from Mirebalais, was murdered while denouncing the alleged smuggling and corruption of former senator and businessman Rony Célestin. In March 2025, the city fell into the hands of gangs. Forbidden Stories went on the ground to continue Joseph’s investigation, revealing the corruption and trafficking that plague Haiti.
Credit: Eloïse Layan / Forbidden Stories
- Forbidden Stories traveled to Mirebalais to continue the work of Néhémie Joseph, who was murdered in 2019. Three weeks later, gangs took control of the town.
- A new judge — the fourth in five years — has just been appointed to take over the investigation into the journalist’s murder. Former senator Rony Célestin remains charged in the case.
- In Belladère, on the border with the Dominican Republic, truck drivers revealed that they are subject to very little customs control, allowing weapons and contraband to pass through the border post. Sources implicated Célestin in this trafficking.
- In addition to a villa in Canada, Célestin and his wife reportedly owned a building in Port-au-Prince, as well as a villa in a luxury seaside resort in the Dominican Republic. Célestin, already sanctioned by the U.S. and Canada, is also in the crosshairs of a U.N. committee of experts. The latter has reportedly recommended that sanctions be imposed on him.
By Eloïse Layan
July 4, 2025
During the night between March 30 and 31, 2025, the Taliban and 400 Mawozo gangs carried out an unprecedented attack and took control of Mirebalais, Haiti, a town of 100,000 inhabitants located 60 kilometers north of Port-au-Prince.
More than 80 people were killed, the police station was partially burned down and the prison was attacked, resulting in the escape of 529 prisoners. The local population fled. Armed men strutted in front of the armoured vehicles abandoned by police, their groups’ names scrawled on the sides in red letters.
The “400 Mawozo” gang stages itself in the burning streets of Mirebalais during the takeover of the city. (Credit: TikTok)
Residents of Mirebalais flee the city attacked by gangs.(Credit: @black.bosal.canaan / TikTok)
In the wake of this chaos, gangs renamed the local radio station Taliban FM as a sign of allegiance to the Taliban of Canaan. On the 97.5 FM frequency, their leader, Jeff Larose, alias Jeff Gwo Lwa, relayed messages to the population and played his rap songs. He created one especially for the town of Mirebalais: “Mirebalais belongs to us … We will walk over the dead bodies. We will eat the meat of your goats and shoot without stopping.” Barely three weeks earlier, Mirebalais was still a peaceful town. Before being rebaptized, the radio station was called Panic FM.
The radio station of Néhémie Joseph, “Panic FM,” now renamed “Taliban FM” by the gangs (Credit: Eloïse Layan / Forbidden Stories).
Néhémie Joseph at the microphone of “Panic FM” radio station (Credit: DR).
Néhémie Joseph worked in a discreet studio on the second floor of a gray cinder block building, accessible by an iron ladder. Among the star journalists of his station, he was known for his program Tanbou Vérité, which pulled no punches in its coverage of the then-ruling Haitian Tèt Kale Party, or PHTK. From favoritism to smuggling at the border, Joseph denounced the corruption that reigns in Haiti and has led to the rise of gangs. His criticism made waves. On Oct. 10, 2019, he was found murdered.
Forbidden Stories, which continues the work of silenced journalists, traveled to Mirebalais in March 2025 to investigate former parliamentarian Rony Célestin, who has been charged in Joseph’s murder. The ex-politician is now a businessman subject to sanctions by the U.S. and Canada for his alleged involvement in drug trafficking and his purported ties to gangs.
Two of Néhémie Joseph’s colleagues – Zacharie Exil on the left and Sadrax Ulysse on the right – in their radio station’s studio in Mirebalais, early March 2025 (Credit: Eloïse Layan / Forbidden Stories).
Since 2000 and the still-unsolved murder of Haiti’s most renowned journalist, Jean-Léopold Dominique, more than 16 journalists have been killed in Haiti. Threats have forced others, including four of Joseph’s former colleagues, to leave the country. This article is the first in a series on the murders of journalists in Haiti and the people behind their deaths.
A journalist who knew he was under threat
Joseph’s face is memorialized on the walls surrounding Bayas Park, on the outskirts of Mirebalais. With a hard look in his eyes and a microphone in his hand, he appears next to an epitaph: “Yon vwa etenn, 1,000 lot ap pale!” meaning “One voice is silenced, 1,000 others speak.” It was here, next to the football stadium, that his body was found, shot multiple times, in the trunk of his own car.
“It was like a bomb went off when we heard the news. It was a heavy blow for the entire population,” Serondier Louisia said, standing in front of the mural. At 32, the young journalist embodies the next generation. For him, Joseph is a “role model,” a “fighter.” Like his colleagues, he denounces what he sees as a political crime: “They said he talked too much and that he had to be silenced.”
Journalist Sérondier Louisia in front of the mural of Néhémie Joseph (Credit: Eloïse Layan / Forbidden Stories).
On Oct. 10, 2019, Joseph hurriedly left his house in the early evening before disappearing. “Around 9 p.m., he hadn’t come home, even though he was supposed to be there to watch the soccer match between Haiti and Costa Rica,” his wife stated in her testimony. His murder would later be announced on the radio.
Joseph knew he was in danger. Less than two weeks before his assassination, he posted on Facebook, “I have already informed everyone, my friends, my family, my loved ones. I told them that everything that happens to me will be the responsibility of Elionel (Casseus, the former mayor of the city) and Senator Rony Célestin.” Forbidden Stories has not independently confirmed whether either man was involved in Joseph’s death.
Lawyer Robenson Mazarin, a friend of Néhémie Joseph, shows a photo of the journalist found murdered in his car on October 10, 2019. He is fighting to seek justice in the case. (Credit: Eloïse Layan / Forbidden Stories).
On a piece of paper, Robenson Mazarin drew up a list: the eight names of those charged in the investigation into Joseph’s murder. For five years, this lawyer and former friend of Joseph has fought tirelessly to demand justice. After a long period of stagnation, the investigation finally led to an order issued in March 2024 by the investigating judge Edwige Dorsainvil. Célestin was referred to the criminal court to stand trial for his part in Joseph’s killing, with “sufficient charges and evidence” against him.
It has proven impossible to speak with Dorsainvil by phone. He has reportedly left the country and is no longer communicating about the case. His home in Port-au-Prince has been shot at. In recent weeks, a new investigating judge — the fourth since 2019 — has been appointed to continue the investigation. For now, though, impunity remains.
Célestin did not personally respond to our interview requests. According to Emmanuel Exil, his lawyer, the former senator is “neither the perpetrator nor an accomplice” to the crime. He “never threatened Néhémie Joseph” and feels he was charged as a result of “an allegation by one of (his) fierce political opponents.” Exil further believes that “the judge did not conduct a proper investigation.”
Campaign poster of Rony Célestin for the senatorial elections (Credit: DR)
Célestin is “the all-powerful man of the department,” a local resident said, wishing to remain anonymous. A former senator and ex-deputy of the PHTK, the party that ruled Haiti for 10 years, he is a close associate of former President Jovenel Moïse, who was assassinated in 2021. Although he no longer holds office, he is still feared. “If you don’t work with Rony Célestin, you have to leave the region,” the resident said.
Originally from a small village on the Dominican border near the town of Hinche, 50 kilometers north of Mirebalais, Célestin is a self-made man, having changed even his identity.
Rony Célestin (right) alongside Jovenel Moïse, former President of the Republic of Haiti before his assassination in 2021. (Credit: DR)
Investigating Célestin means immediately encountering the difficulty of obtaining evidence in a country where rumors run rampant and access to archives is virtually impossible, if they haven’t been burned altogether. These shortcomings have benefited the former senator. In his stronghold in the Central Plateau, rumor has it that he changed his name after getting into trouble with the law in the 1990s. It is impossible to find official documents — the Port-au-Prince courthouse records were burned. But Forbidden Stories received confirmation that Célestin’s real name is Rony Appolon. “I eventually realized that he’s someone nobody knows,” said a source formerly close to him, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A member of parliament since 2011, Célestin was elected senator in 2017 against a backdrop of contested elections. At the same time, he expanded his business interests: a nightclub, construction companies, agricultural enterprises and an iron trading business. He also claims to own the oil company Pétrogaz Haïti. But above all, Célestin is the king of imports and exports at the border with the Dominican Republic.
Belladère, the doorway for contraband into Haiti
One of the main border posts, Belladère, is less than an hour’s drive from the town of Mirebalais. Joseph had visited it several times. “Our goal was to see how customs, entrepreneurs and drivers transporting goods all operated,” said one of his former colleagues, Zacharie Exil. Another journalistic source also reported that Joseph had interviewed Célestin’s drivers.
Trucks are cleaned before heading to the Dominican Republic to pick up goods: fertilizer, oil, flour.
(Credit: Eloïse Layan / Forbidden Stories).
Along the road are green fields and hills, with Lake Péligre, the second largest lake in the country, visible in the distance. A few kilometers before the border, next to a stream and under a bridge, five trucks were being washed. “They have to be clean to load the goods,” said Djeny, a man in his twenties, shirtless and wearing blue Bermuda shorts. He cleans 15 trucks a day.
The trucks go on to be filled with fertilizer, rice, flour, oil, beans, iron and cement in the Dominican Republic before making the return trip. Haiti doesn’t produce enough alone — the country lives off its imports.
“When I lived in Cap-Haïtien, even the ice cubes we used came from the Dominican Republic,” said Haitian researcher Jean-Marie Théodat, director of the geography department at Paris 1 Sorbonne.
On the way back, drivers are extorted by gangs: 300 to 400 euros per passage (Credit: Eloïse Layan / Forbidden Stories).
Strangled by the double debt imposed by France following Haitian independence in 1804, Haiti was never able to implement strong agricultural and industrial policies, unlike its neighbor. The final blow came in 1991 with an embargo by the Organization of American States, which sanctioned the coup against Jean Bertrand Aristide, who had just been elected president.
“The embargo destroyed what remained of Haiti’s industry. We saw the last factories disappear because there was no longer any access to materials,” Théodat said. The embargo’s lifting in 1994 marked a leap into the neoliberal economy. “Haiti entered into free trade without any safeguards,” Théodat continued.
The tax on agricultural imports was lifted, leaving producers alone to face the forces of the globalized market without protection or investment. Small farmers — the average size of a farm in Haiti being less than 1.5 hectares — could not compete with large American and Dominican farms. “It becomes more profitable to import. This is when Haiti becomes the third-largest importer of American rice,” explained political scientist Frédéric Thomas, author of the book “Haiti, Our Debt.”
As a result, the most lucrative sector has become imports and exports. “Even today, the Haitian market remains concentrated in the hands of a few families, all of whom are involved in imports and exports,” Thomas said. Célestin himself imports large quantities of cement, iron and construction materials.
376 kilometers of border divide the island of Hispaniola in two. Here, in Belladère (Credit: Eloïse Layan / Forbidden Stories).
The flag of the Dominican Republic flies on the other side of the fence. On the Haitian side, stands sell Barbancourt rum and clairin, a sugarcane spirit. Groups of men gamble. The border cuts the island of Hispaniola — referred to as “the pearl of the Antilles” by colonists — in two, a legacy of the division between France in the west and Spain in the east. Today, barbed wire is beginning to appear between the two countries. The Dominican Republic is currently building a 170-kilometer wall along the border, with the stated aim of combating immigration and protecting itself from gang violence.
In early March 2025, in Belladère, around 100 trucks stood parked in front of the border. Jean has been a truck driver for three years, traveling back and forth between Port-au-Prince and the Dominican Republic, this time to pick up some 50 tons of iron.
The return journey is always fraught with anxiety, passing through Canaan, the stronghold of the Taliban. He is taxed along the way: 50,000 gourdes (325 euros) per truck, which he pays “to Jeff Larose’s men.” Extortion at checkpoints is one of the methods used by gangs to fill their coffers. “When I go down to Port-au-Prince, I take my life in my hands,” Jean said, his eyes red and exhausted from the fatigue of being on the road. The situation in his country is “killing me, it really disgusts me.”
Jean, a freight driver in Haiti, speaks to Forbidden Stories. The country’s situation is “killing him”(Credit: Eloïse Layan / Forbidden Stories).
Shortly before Joseph’s death in 2019, protests against corruption had been growing across the country. In Mirebalais, a truck returning from Belladère was burned by a crowd. The former mayor of the city and Célestin seized the opportunity to accuse the journalist and his program of exacerbating the protesters’ violence, according to Joseph’s colleagues. In their eyes, the burning of cargo coming from the border may well have sealed his fate.
Joseph was aware of this, as evidenced by a Facebook post he wrote two weeks before his assassination. “People are plotting in Belladère to have (me) assassinated … Senator Rony Célestin has given (my) name, singling (me) out as one of the main instigators of the unrest,” it read.
Disrupting road transport in the Central Plateau means jeopardizing a lucrative business. Several sources described Célestin as a notorious “smuggler” who “does not pay customs duties.”
“Smuggling involves prohibited goods that cross the Dominican border or do not comply with the state’s legal formalities,” said Zacharie Exil, Joseph’s former colleague.
Borders and smuggling often go hand in hand — a reality reinforced by years of embargo. Today, along the 376 kilometers of border, there is still a multitude of illegal entry points, with small retailers crossing from one country to another, carrying bags of goods on their backs. But even at established border posts such as Belladère, contraband passes through in large quantities, “with a significant loss of customs revenue for the Haitian state,” said researcher Romain Le Cour Grandmaison, Director for Haiti at the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime.
Belladère, freight trucks in March 2025. The border post is known for arms trafficking, with weapons hidden in the cargo (Credit: Eloïse Layan / Forbidden Stories)
The accusations against Célestin are backed up by a U.N. expert report dated September 2024, which explains that the former elected official engages in “mis-invoicing and the corrupting of customs officials.” Without taxes, Célestin can sell products at a more competitive price, allowing him to win public contracts and destroy the competition in the process.
“In border areas, it is possible for a political or economic actor to build powerful networks of clients and to wield considerable influence, or cause harm, at the local level and on the national political scene,” Le Cour Grandmaison said.
A porous border for arms trafficking
According to U.N. sources who spoke with truck drivers and former members of the 400 Mawazo gang, Célestin’s trucks also transport weapons, sometimes hidden among his cargo. The September 2024 report describes “small batches of 100 to 500 rounds of ammunition and two or three rifles or pistols” destined for 400 Mawozo, which specializes in kidnappings and made headlines after abducting 16 American missionaries in 2022.
According to the report, once in Haiti, the gangsters allegedly escort Célestin’s trucks to avoid inspection. Célestin is said to pay between $3,000 and $5,000 per shipment for this modus operandi. In addition to weapons, the report mentions allegations of drug trafficking.
At the border, speaking on condition of anonymity, truck drivers explained that “the guns” pass through Belladère hidden in containers. According to Jean, the driver who went to the Dominican Republic to pick up iron, politicians “protect this system. And it’s killing the country.” He described customs officers “who don’t do their job. For a 40-foot (12-meter) container, they only look at what’s at the back, not the front. They turn a blind eye.”
A police source confirmed. “Belladère operates separately; the state doesn’t really keep an eye on the area,” they said. Sometimes, a simple “Do not open” sign is enough to deter customs from opening a truck.
Lanmo Sanjou with his Barrett M82 (Credit: TikTok).
“Belladère is a black mark against customs,” said a member of an international organization working on Haiti’s borders. Last March, a shipment was seized at the port of Haina in the Dominican Republic. Inside the container were 36,000 rounds of ammunition, 23 firearms — including a submachine gun — and a .50-caliber Barrett sniper rifle, a military weapon that can be used against lightly armored vehicles.
Some gangs, notably 400 Mawozo, have already boasted about having the Barrett rifle in their arsenal. In a video posted on TikTok in December 2024, 400 Mawozo’s leader, Lanmo Sanjou, films himself proudly holding up the same model. According to the customs manifest consulted by Forbidden Stories, the weapons were shipped from Miami and destined for Belladère.
It is virtually impossible to estimate the number of weapons arriving in Haiti. But most of them come from the U.S., despite a U.N. arms embargo. Purchased by straw men, they are often dismantled and hidden in containers bound for Haitian and Dominican ports. Ammunition — sometimes even European, as in 2024 when cartridges from the Italian brand Fiocchi were seized — pistols and AK47 and Barrett rifles arrive in Haiti, and the calibers are getting bigger and bigger.
Célestin’s ill-gotten gains
In Haiti, there is no shortage of channels for laundering money from trafficking. “Construction materials and gas stations are often front businesses, because they’re activities where there’s a continuous flow of cash. Construction is ongoing. It’s an opportunity to spend large amounts of cash,” said Théodat from Paris 1 Sorbonne.
Edouard Paultre, executive secretary for the Haitian anti-corruption organization Ensemble Contre la Corruption, agrees. “These are known sources of money laundering, with a lack of oversight and transactions conducted in cash,” he explained, saying the same of real estate and the gambling sector.
In Paultre’s eyes, “those with political power place themselves above everything else.” Indeed, Célestin — who also holds more than 20 bank accounts in Haiti — owns numerous properties in Haiti, as well as abroad.
Mirebalais, March 8, 2025. The gambling sector is widely used in Haiti for money laundering.
(Credit: Eloïse Layan / Forbidden Stories)
In March 2025, the roads to Port-au-Prince were too dangerous to travel, and commercial flights were suspended after a passenger plane was shot at in November 2024. They only resumed at the beginning of June. Port-au-Prince, 85% controlled by gangs, is almost entirely cut off from the rest of the country. Only a few helicopters shuttle people around, between the capital and Cap-Haïtien, in the north of Haiti.
U.N. helicopters land in Pétion-Ville, an affluent neighborhood that has been spared from gang violence. The capital’s most luxurious hotel, the Karibe, is meters away, with a swimming pool and tennis courts. Allegedly, Célestin’s businesses are not far either. Rumor has it that he owns the property directly opposite, “the Roncel Apartment” at 18, Juvénat 7.
Promotional post showcasing the Roncel Apartment (Credit: @leroncelhaiti / Instagram)
Forbidden Stories can confirm that Célestin’s wife, Marie-Louisa Aubin Célestin, was the building’s owner. According to documents Forbidden Stories has obtained, 18 Rue Juvénat 7 is the registered address of Céleste Construction et Immobilier S.A., one of the Célestin couple’s companies. Two sources also claim that the land was not paid for, but stolen by the former senator, in a country plagued by land insecurity and with no land registry. Ironically, it is precisely in the Roncel Apartment building that several U.N. employees rent apartments for more than 2,000 euros a month.
The extent of Célestin’s fortune was first made publicly known in Canada. In 2021, the newspaper La Presse revealed that he owns a villa estimated to be worth 2.6 million euros with a view of the Lake of Two Mountains in Laval. Célestin’s wife, Aubin Célestin, enjoyed the status of Honorary Consul of Haiti in Canada at the time.
Not only were their assets not seized, but it also appears that two companies were registered last year at the villa’s address in the names of Célestin’s wife and daughters, according to the Quebec enterprise register. One of them, delisted since the end of May, is MICA Célestin CONSTRUCTION, INC., an addition to a portfolio that reportedly already includes MICA Poulailler, MICA Shop and a MICA retail enterprise in Haiti.
The Laval villa, located in Canada, is valued at 2.6 million euros.
(Credit: Centris)
The prestigious Casa de Campo complex in the Dominican Republic, where Rony Célestin owns a residence (Credit: Instagram / Capture d’écran Forbidden Stories).
In the Dominican Republic, too, Haitian politicians are doing good business. “The Dominican Republic is a huge washing machine. Dirty money earned in Haiti is cleaned there, and the dirty water from the laundered money is returned to us. In the Dominican Republic, buildings and hotels are being built; it’s a continuous cash flow. Meanwhile, in Haiti, it’s arms trafficking and human trafficking,” Théodat said. Célestin is said to have bought a villa in Casa de Campo — one of the most selective Dominican resorts, frequented by Bill Clinton, Beyoncé and the Kardashians.
The Haitian courts have launched an investigation into Célestin’s declaration of assets. According to his lawyer, Emmanuel Exil, it is up to the investigators to “provide evidence of the assets held.” He claims his client is “divorced,” although he cannot specify when. Therefore, “his wife’s assets cannot be considered his.” According to a Quebec notarial deed consulted by Forbidden Stories, the Célestins were still declaring themselves married in 2021.
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Delayed international sanctions in the face of endemic corruption
Former President Michel Martelly, former Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe and former Prime Minister Jean Henry Céant: over a dozen prominent politicians and businessmen are now subject to sanctions imposed by the U.S. and Canada for corruption, drug trafficking, or links to gangs. Célestin is among them, sanctioned in 2022 by the U.S. for drug trafficking and by Canada, which “has reason to believe” that Célestin and others “are using their status as current or previous public office holders to protect and enable the illegal activities of armed criminal gangs, including through money laundering and other acts of corruption.” Célestin has challenged Canada’s sanctions in court, arguing that they are unreasonable. The case has yet to be decided.
“We can see that all representatives of economic and political sectors, including former President Martelly, are subject to sanctions. This paints a general picture that shows corruption is endemic, structural and systematic,” said political scientist Thomas. “It also highlights what the international community did not want to see happen and what has been denounced for years: a predatory class that shares economic and political power, set on enriching itself through monopolization, predation and the instrumentalization of armed gangs.”
But these sanctions are failing to have much impact. “One ends up wondering, why is it that despite the accusations, there have been no arrests, no trials? Nothing is being done to bring them to justice,” Théodat said.
The most effective sanctions could come from the U.N. Security Council. In 2022, a new sanctions regime was created for Haiti, including an asset freeze and a travel ban. “I don’t think this is taken lightly by individuals who have assets abroad, who can travel, who sometimes have multiple nationalities,” a diplomatic source said. But at this stage, politicians are spared. Of the seven individuals currently sanctioned, six are gang leaders.
Several analysts consider it “counterproductive” and “ineffective” — often, gang leaders do not leave Haiti and have no assets abroad. And U.N. sanctions no longer act as a sword of Damocles hanging over the Haitian elite. “For the past two and a half years, sanctions have focused on gang leaders, with the exception of one former member of parliament. The deterrent effect on the political and economic supporters of gangs, who are almost never troubled, has dissipated,” said researcher Le Cour GrandMaison.
About a month ago, experts suggested a new list of individuals to the Security Council, “with a good number of them being politicians and businessmen,” a diplomatic source reported. According to Forbidden Stories’ information, a U.N. committee of experts has recommended that the sanctions committee impose sanctions on Célestin — but whether the member states of the U.N. Security Council will actually do so remains to be seen.
Célestin’s lawyer, Emmanuel Exil, did not seem particularly concerned for his client, comparing the sanctions to a “nightingale singing.” “There is no complaint, and there is no evidence,” he said. “It is up to the U.N., the Canadian embassy and the U.S. embassy to provide evidence — otherwise, it is worthless.”
Road leaving Belladère, March 2025. The region was still spared from gang violence (Credit: Eloïse Layan / Forbidden Stories)
In Hinche, Célestin’s stronghold, the population now fears the arrival of armed groups; the Taliban of Canaan and 400 Mawozo are barely 50 kilometers away. It is difficult to know whether Célestin’s alleged ties to 400 Mawozo will offer protection. “While armed groups are sometimes financed by politicians and businessmen, they do not necessarily pledge allegiance to them,” said a member of an international organization. Will they break free from politicians?
The coalition Viv Ansanm, meaning “Live Together,” was created in September 2023. Designated a “terrorist organization” by the U.S., it unites formerly rival factions and has enabled the gangs to gain power and autonomy. For the moment, they are advancing extraordinarily far from their base, but it is unclear whether they will be able to sustain this expansion over time.
In Mirebalais, all the people Forbidden Stories met last March have now fled.
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