EX-HAITIAN ANTI-DRUG CHIEF, ACCUSED COCAINE SMUGGLER PLEAD INNOCENT IN
MIAMI

MIAMI -- A former Haitian anti-drug chief and an owner of a Haitian
freighter pleaded innocent to drug charges Monday as U.S.
investigators probe official protection for Colombian cocaine shipped
through the Caribbean nation on its way to Miami.

Former anti-drug chief Evintz Brillant is charged with conspiracy,
while freighter owner Elin Napoleon is facing four drug and conspiracy
counts. Both face possible life sentences.

Brillant, 32, is accused of conspiring with former Haitian national
police commander Rudy Therassan.

Based on reports from four undisclosed informants, a criminal
complaint filed in May accuses Brillant of opportunistically shaking
down traffickers.

He allegedly seized $450,000 from admitted Colombian trafficker Carlos
Ovalle and took payoffs for providing security to a Haitian trafficker
and returning a passport to a smuggler. Informants understood that
some of the money was passed along to others on the police force.

A former Haitian police officer turned informant also claimed that
Brillant was being groomed as a replacement for Therassan as security
chief for top Colombian drug suppliers.

Napoleon, 41, was accused earlier this month of being part-owner of a
freighter that carried cocaine out of Haiti and arranging
transportation once shipments arrived in Miami. Napoleon was indicted
along with Carlos Martinez, who prosecutors claim is a Colombian
connection in Miami for receiving the cocaine.

The complaint named Michael Frantz Jeanty as Napoleon's Haitian
partner on the shipping venture and as the leader of a major drug
organization, but Jeanty was not indicted, often a clue of
cooperation.

Five former Haitian government and police officials have been charged
in Miami since Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide went into
exile Feb. 29, feeding a wide-ranging investigation launched before
his departure into cocaine transshipments through Haiti.

A crackdown on other Caribbean drug-smuggling routes through Jamaica
and the Bahamas was announced Wednesday with the arrests of more than
50 reputed traffickers.