A U.S. federal court sentenced Jonathan Rafael Ortega Martinez, a 42-year-old Dominican national, to ten years in prison for leading a vast arms trafficking network between the United States, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. The sentence was handed down on December 10, 2025, by a federal court in Florida.
Between 2023 and April 2024, the defendant orchestrated a structured criminal organization that used "ghost buyers" to legally acquire weapons in the United States before illegally exporting them to the Caribbean. This scheme allowed the network to circumvent controls and ship more than 1,000 firearms, including Glock pistols, assault rifles, and AK-47s.
These weapons primarily fueled criminal groups in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, contributing to the worsening insecurity, particularly in Haiti. Some were found at crime scenes, establishing a direct link between this international trafficking and armed violence in the region.
Washington presented this conviction as a strong signal against transnational arms trafficking and calls for strengthened regional cooperation to curb the supply of armed groups and contain insecurity.
Posted Dec. 25, 2025