MIAMI — A row of federal agents and prosecutors stood Wednesday behind tables displaying dozens of recently seized military-grade sniper rifles, belt-fed machine guns and semi-automatic pistols — all originally destined for Haiti.
Their message: Firearms smuggling from South Florida to Haiti has spun into “an alarming trend” and the feds need the public’s help to plug the pipeline of illegal weapons exports to the violence-stricken Caribbean nation.
Anthony Salisbury, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations, said at a news conference that both the number of weapons and the types of firepower have increased to unprecedented levels to a region torn apart by drug traffickers, gang violence and everyday kidnappings. Since the early 1990s, the United States has imposed an embargo on weapons sales to Haiti, but all firearms exports to foreign countries require a federal license.
