SWAT and other specialized units of the Haiti National Police were moving in and out of Port-au-Prince’s main courthouse as they tried to figure out how to carry an oversized safe with sensitive documents from some of the country’s most high-profile criminal cases out of the former U.S. government building onto a vehicle to transport it elsewhere.
In one of the courtrooms, six jailed defendants, including the most recent head of the National Penitentiary, were being questioned about a check cashing scheme. All faced accusations that they had been cashing the checks of police officers who had abandoned their posts, and had been using their debit cards for years.
It seemed like a normal day inside Haiti’s sometimes working, sometimes dysfunctional, sometimes closed court system. That is, until a notorious gang decided to take it over.
