A retired U.S. Army colonel was charged in a complaint unsealed today for his alleged role in a foreign bribery and money laundering scheme in connection with a planned $84 million port development project in Haiti.<\/p>\n
Joseph Baptiste, 64, of Fulton, Md., was arrested on a criminal complaint filed in the District of Massachusetts. He was charged with one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and to launder money.<\/p>\n
The complaint alleges that Baptiste solicited bribes from undercover agents in Boston who posed as potential investors in infrastructure projects in Haiti, in connection with a proposed project to develop a port in the Moles Saint Nicolas area of Haiti. According to the complaint, the proposed project was expected to cost approximately $84 million, and was to involve the construction of multiple cement factories, a shipping-vessel recycling station, an international transshipment station with numerous slips for shipping vessels, a power plant, a petroleum depot and tourist facilities. The complaint alleges that Baptiste told the agents, in a recorded meeting at a Boston-area hotel, that he would funnel the payments to Haitian officials through a non-profit entity that he controlled \u2014 which was based in Maryland and purported to help impoverished residents of Haiti \u2014 in order to secure government approval of the project.<\/p>\n
The complaint further alleges that in telephone calls intercepted by agents pursuant to court authorization, Baptiste discussed bribing an aide to a senior Haitian official by giving him a job on the port development project after he left his position. It further alleges that although Baptiste ultimately used for personal purposes approximately $50,000 that he received from undercover agents for the payment of bribes to Haitian officials \u2014 money that was wired at Baptiste\u2019s direction to a non-profit organization he controls \u2014 he intended to seek additional money from the undercover agents to use for future bribe payments in connection with the port project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A retired U.S. Army colonel was charged in a complaint unsealed today for his alleged role in a foreign bribery and money laundering scheme in connection with a planned $84 million port development project in Haiti. Joseph Baptiste, 64, of Fulton, Md., was arrested on a criminal complaint filed in the District of Massachusetts. He […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5409,"featured_media":95057,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[54,4479],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n