MIAMI — Haitian gangsters have turned Port-au-Prince into a “kill zone,” the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations said on Monday.
Michael Waltz, a former U.S. Army Special Forces officer, told the U.N. Security Council the gangsters took over the main port.
“They are exporting their crime far beyond Port-au-Prince,” Waltz said. “What was incredibly disturbing, amongs many things, is that they are valorizing it, they are celebrating it on social media sites like TikTok and Facebook and Instagram.”
Waltz said the U.S. will be working “in the very near future” to stop the Haitian gangsters from earning an income from the traffic on their social media posts.
The gangsters are “portraying themselves as revolutionaries as they recruit children to their cause,” and “move guns and drugs and terror,” Waltz said.
Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier, a former elite police officer wanted by the FBI, is the leader of the “Viv Ansanm” or Living Together, a gang alliance in Port-au-Prince.
“There will be hell to pay,“ Waltz wrote on X in a message for gang leaders in Haiti about the U.N.-backed multinational gang suppression force commanded by Mongolian Maj. Gen. Erdenebat Batsuuri.
The U.N. estimates that the gangs have internally displaced about 1.5 million people.
Related social media
Haiti is only a few hundred miles from Florida.
— Ambassador Mike Waltz (@USAmbUN) July 20, 2026
What happens there does not stay there.
Gangs are moving guns, drugs, and terror through the Caribbean—to our shores, at our border, and in our communities. pic.twitter.com/6oiU9uPcPg
The Gang Suppression Force will do EXACTLY what it was named to do: suppress the lawless thugs causing chaos in Haiti and threatening the entire region.
— Ambassador Mike Waltz (@USAmbUN) July 20, 2026
My message to the gang leaders, like ‘Barbecue’: There will be hell to pay. pic.twitter.com/1uBVqwRyaa
Copyright 2026 by WPLG Local10.com - All rights reserved.
