FBI Agent Testimony Reveals Meeting With Haiti Assassination Plotters Months Before President Moïse’s Murder

FBI Agent Testifies About Meeting That Preceded Moïse’s Assassination

An FBI agent testified this week that he attended a meeting with a confidential informant and his colleagues at a Doral security company just three months before the assassination of Haiti’s president, which prosecutors say former Colombian soldiers carried out nearly five years ago at the behest of four South Florida men standing trial in Miami.

Among those attending the meeting hosted by Counter Terrorist Unit Security (CTU) were Special Agent George Nuñez and his informant, Arcángel Pretel Ortiz, a Colombian national and CTU executive. Also present were a dozen others, including a Haiti-born doctor and pastor who sought to replace Haitian President Jovenel Moïse.

Key Details of the Meeting

• Date of Meeting: April 2021
• Location: CTU office in Doral, Florida
• Report Written: April 6, 2021 (later amended)
• Assassination: July 7, 2021

Nuñez testified that he attended the meeting at CTU unaware of any plot to kill Moïse beforehand and had warned the informant not to use his relationship with the U.S. government for personal gain.

Agent’s Report and Its Amendment

Although Nuñez wrote a report about the meeting on April 6, 2021, he did not disclose its full contents — including the presence of Pretel’s CTU partner, Antonio “Tony” Intriago — until after Moïse was shot a dozen times in his bedroom on July 7, 2021, and U.S. and Haitian authorities arrested the group of Colombian commandos and others tied to the meeting.

Nuñez acknowledged under oath that he amended the report a few months later after consulting with a federal prosecutor. “Once the events of July 7 had occurred … I started seeing individuals that were being investigated,” Nuñez, who served as Pretel’s primary handler between August 2020 and July 2021, told the jury.

Defendants on Trial

The defendants standing trial in Miami federal court are Arcángel Pretel Ortiz, Antonio Intriago, James Solages, and Walter Veintemilla. They are accused of conspiring to kidnap and kill Moïse. Before trial, six other defendants pleaded guilty to the main conspiracy charge of killing Haiti’s president or to a lesser charge.

Pretel’s secret role as an informant for the FBI surfaced in the aftermath of the Haitian president’s slaying, but Nuñez’s testimony marked the first time that the agent spoke publicly about his relationship with the now-dismissed informant.

What the FBI Knew

What U.S. authorities knew about the plot to oust Moïse has long been a point of contention. Among the attendees were former Sen. Joseph Joel John, Jacmel Mayor Marky Kessa, as well as Christian Emmanuel Sanon (introduced as a “presidential hopeful for Haiti”) and Solages (introduced as a “former member of U.S. military”).

Participants discussed narcotics trafficking, money laundering and human trafficking tied to Iranian and Syrian operations in Haiti, Nuñez said. However, when the conversation turned to Haiti’s political crisis, raised by John, Nuñez said he “shut down” the conversation. “He was complaining about the political situation in Haiti and a lack of support by the United States,” Nuñez added.

“We were not looking at it as a diplomatic mission. We were looking to obtain criminal information.” — Special Agent George Nuñez

Prosecution and Defense Perspectives

Prosecutors have portrayed the assassination plot as a get-rich, profit-driven scheme that aimed to replace Moïse with a new president willing to give CTU’s owners and associates lucrative contracts for security and infrastructure projects in Haiti. Defense lawyers counter that their clients were not trying to conceal their involvement and argue that the president was killed by his own Haitian security members before the Colombians arrived.

For more updates on this case, stay tuned to Al Ritmo de Miami.