ICE arrests Haiti's influential businessman Dimitri Vorbe on U.S. soil

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Federal immigration agents arrested Dimitri Vorbe, one of Haiti’s most powerful businessmen, on U.S. soil, according to online records. He was in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody on Tuesday and was being held at the Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami, though officials have not disclosed the charges.

It was not immediately clear why Vorbe was arrested or whether he faces formal charges. A search of Florida court records on Tuesday showed no pending charges, and an ICE spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The arrest comes two months after ICE agents in Florida arrested Réginald Boulos, a businessman, doctor and former Haitian presidential hopeful. Authorities have accused Boulos of supporting violent gangs in Haiti that the United States government has designated as terrorist groups. "With the arrests of Boulos and Vorbe, you are seeing a strata of Haitian society touched in their places of exile," said Michael Deibert, an author who has written about Haiti. "A message is being sent to the upper echelon of Haiti’s political and economic elite that they’re not untouchable anymore."

Vorbe and his family own Société Générale d’Énergie S.A., a private power company that was one of the biggest suppliers of electricity to Haiti’s state-owned utility. The Vorbe family has also secured major government construction projects for roads and other infrastructure under former President René Préval. "They were getting lots of money from the state," said Jake Johnston, international research director at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. "Both Boulos and Dimitri Vorbe were the two members of the elite, the oligarchs that Jovenel went after."

In 2020, the administration of slain former President Jovenel Moïse seized Vorbe’s power company following accusations of corruption. "There is not much love lost in Haiti either for Dimitri Vorbe or Réginald Boulos, or many of the elite families," Johnston added. "Many people will cheer it in a country with a broken judicial system as it’s some sliver of accountability, (but) we don’t know what any of this is for. … How does this all fit together into a strategy that actually benefits Haiti?"

Vorbe was taken into custody a day after the U.S. government designated two former Haitian public officials who were close to the Vorbe family for involvement in “significant corruption” while in office. The designation against Arnel Belizaire, a former member of Haiti’s Chamber of Deputies, and Antonio Cheramy, a former senator, means that they and their immediate families are generally ineligible to enter the United States. "The U.S. government will remain relentless in pursuing those supporting terrorist gangs through indictments, sanctions, arms seizures and other immigration restrictions," said Christopher Landau, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of State, in a statement issued Monday.

The Vorbe family is not only economically powerful, but politically influential as well. Joel "Pacha" Vorbe is a member of the Fanmi Lavalas political party, while an attorney for the Vorbe’s power company was appointed minister of justice in recent years before resigning and being sanctioned by Canada. Such ties underscore how some of Haiti’s elites have long been linked to governance and business deals that critics say have benefited from, or enabled, corrupt practices and informal networks.

Observers note that several elite families in Haiti have faced long-standing accusations of financing and working with gangs that control large swaths of Port-au-Prince, with gang violence surging in recent years. The arrests of Vorbe and Boulos appear to fit a pattern of intensified U.S. attention on corruption and gang activity tied to figures who operate across Haiti’s exile and homeland profiles, even as questions remain about what concrete reforms might follow and how they would affect Haiti’s fragile institutions.