Facing an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, Haiti is on the brink of state failure. No stranger to political and economic emergencies, the Caribbean country has been the focus of a half dozen United Nations peacekeeping missions since the 1990s. But never has this long-suffering nation seen the array of cascading crises now converging on its estimated 11.8 million residents: Some 4.7 million people are threatened by acute hunger, including around 2.4 million children. Cholera is spreading across most of the country’s departments. A succession of natural disasters has compounded these miseries.

     Yet the country’s worst afflictions, including an ongoing security crisis paralyzing the nation, are fundamentally man-made. The underlying drivers of Haiti’s woes are complex, but metastasized criminal gangs and the predatory political and economic corruption that enable them have made the country’s plight immeasurably worse. If left unattended, Haiti’s security crisis will only deepen, leading to further upheaval at home and beyond, with grim implications for regional stability.

    Gangs have a long history in Haiti. For decades, they have been weaponized by senior politicians, bureaucrats, and business elites to suppress dissent, sway elections, and offer protection. But today, these criminal networks—currently estimated to consist of about 200 armed groups—are multiplying and decoupling from their traditional patrons. To finance their operations, gangs are diversifying their traditional criminal activities beyond intimidation-for-hire and neighborhood extortion to include drug trafficking and money laundering.

    Haiti’s latest food insecurity and cholera outbreaks are inextricably linked to the increasing power of criminal gangs and the social disarray they accelerate. Gang rule is hindering access to basic relief, blocking fuel supplies, and profoundly disturbing services at various institutions from hospitals and clinics to schools and markets. A forthcoming assessment with the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime—which I helped write—will show that one reason Haiti’s criminal groups are so potent is their access to increasingly powerful firearms, ammunition, and drugs. Another factor is that the Haitian elite has enabled them for decades.

    Dozens of elected and appointed government officials have been implicated in corruption, money laundering, arms smuggling, and drug trafficking to bolster their power and influence. A slew of recent sanctions targeting current and former Haitian officials—including travel bans, asset freezes, and arms embargoes—have implicated only a sliver of those people suspected of being involved in or supporting criminal gangs. The U.N. Security Council, for example, has sanctioned only one individual, Jimmy Chérizier (also known as “Barbecue”), a former police chief and current head of the notorious Fòs Revolisyonè G9 gang. Britain, Canada, and the United States, on the other hand, have sanctioned a veritable who’s who of Haiti’s elite.

    Included on the sanctions list by both Ottawa and Washington, for example, are Youri Latortue, a former Haitian Senate president, and Joseph Lambert, the sitting Senate president. The Canadians have also singled out former President Michel Martelly as well as two former prime ministers, Laurent Lamothe and Jean-Henry Céant. Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury Department targeted the U.S. assets of Haitian Sen. Rony Célestin and former Sen. Richard Lenine Hervé Fourcand, both accused of facilitating drug trafficking activities.

    And for the first time, a government has targeted Haitian businesspeople. In late 2022, Canada sanctioned Haiti’s wealthiest citizen, Gilbert Bigio (who resides in the United States), together with business leaders Reynold Deeb and Sherif Abdallah. Canada accuses them of corruption, money laundering, and involvement in protecting and enabling armed gangs. Corruption and patronage networks, such as those described by Canada, have long incubated Haiti’s criminal markets. No surprise, then, that Haiti is tied with four countries to be ranked 171st out of 180 nations in Transparency International’s 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index and 179th out of 190 countries in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business ranking, last released in 2020.

     The involvement of Haiti’s political and economic elite in supercharging gangs is one reason why the country’s downward spiral has been many years in the making and long precedes the 2021 assassination of then-Haitian President Jovenel Moïse. Heavily armed gangs now roaming the country and terrorizing cities, villages, and the countryside are amplifying the nation’s humanitarian disasters. Criminal federations and networks such as G9, G-PEP, and 400 Mawozo control significant portions of key cities, including nearly three-quarters of the capital, Port-au-Prince. Gang violence has caused widespread fear and forced almost 100,000 residents to flee Port-au-Prince last year. By virtually every measure of insecurity—including homicide, sexual violence, kidnappings, police killings, internal displacement, and emigration—Haitians are worse off than ever before.