Haitian consulate probed for illegal activities

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Haitian consulate probed for trafficking Chinese through Dominican soil

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Zoom Picture BARAHONA, Dominican Republic.- The Haitian Government ordered an investigation into an international network which traffics with Chinese, which supposedly had links with Haiti's consulate in the Dominican city of Barahona.

Haiti's current chief of affairs in the consulate in the southern Dominican territory, Pierre Laud Lagrenade was notified by his country's Foreign Ministry that visa services are suspended until the probe concludes.

Dominican, Colombian, Panamanian and Chinese citizens must obtain a tourist visa to travel to Haiti, with a single entry costing US$85 in the Haitian consulates in Dominican territory, according to sources.

The Haitian authorities were alerted of the case by Haiti's Trade Development Office in China, which points out that China's immigration services have requested support to determine the routes by which its citizen obtained Haitian visas, without even leaving their territory.

According to the news site Clave Digital, quoting www.espacinsular.org, an international crime network obtained tourist or businesses visas for Chinese citizens who then reached United States or Canada using Haiti and Dominican Republic as a bridge, through Barahona's consulate.

The passports were sent from China via private courier, then given to a Chinese or Dominican local contact who returned them to China.

Haiti's consulates around the world are not authorized to issue visas to citizens of communist China without prior approval of the Haitian Foreign Ministry, as is part of Haiti's cooperation in the war against the trafficking of human beings.

The decision was taken at the end of June, 2002 and after the scandal of trafficking with Chinese in which the ex- Dominican consul in the northern city of Cape Haitien, Radhamés Ramos Garcia (nicknamed El Chino) was implicated and later convicted.

Data obtained in China and Port-au-Prince revealed that the dealers paid US$3,000 for each visa. Investigators are trying to determine the number of visas issued and who is directly implied.

For now, Dominican Customs and Immigration offices in Jimaní, Elías Piña and Pedernales have been alerted to the fact that the "I.D." of employees signed by the ex-vice consul Harry Joseph are not valid and has led them to believe that these include inspectors "designated" by Joseph in several communities under that consular jurisdiction.

The investigated files were supposedly issued during Joseph's second tenure without official endorsement, at least not from Haiti's Foreign Ministry and he becomes first consular official dismissed from his functions by Rene Preval's government.

He was implicated Last April in an unauthorized operation to contract 200 Haitian laborers and illegal trafficking, and denounced in the www.espacinsular.org website.

visit www.Dominican today .com for original article

Marcel The Body, October 27 2008, 1:06 AM

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