MIAMI — Arcángel Pretel Ortiz, one of 11 defendants accused in the plot to kidnap and kill Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, was so emboldened as an FBI informant that the Miami-area resident met with agents and promoted “regime change” in Haiti ahead of the brazen presidential assassination.
Ortiz’s FBI ties, first reported by the Miami Herald in a series about how the plot to overthrow Haiti’s president was partly rooted in South Florida, were laid out in a criminal complaint Tuesday charging him and two others with supporting a conspiracy to kidnap and kill the president of Haiti.
A fourth defendant, Frederick Bergmann Jr., is charged with conspiring to smuggle ballistic vests to former Colombian soldiers who allegedly carried out the deadly July 7, 2021, attack that left Moïse dead and his wife, Martine Moïse, seriously wounded.
