Posted on 02/12/2010 12:10:09 PM PST by GovernmentShrinker
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The police in El Salvador have begun an investigation into whether a man suspected of leading a trafficking ring involving Central American and Caribbean women and girls is also a legal adviser to the Americans charged with trying to take 33 children out of Haiti without permission. . . . Judge Saint-Vil also said he thought that the photo of the trafficking suspect in a Salvadoran police file appeared to be the same man he had met in court. He said he intended to begin his own investigation into whether a trafficking suspect had been working with the Americans detained in Haiti. . . . The judge said he would request assistance from the Department of Homeland Security to look into Mr. Puello’s background. . . . An Interpol arrest warrant has been issued for someone named Jorge Anibal Torres Puello. . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Lots more at the link. I feel bad for the families of the 8 dupes, who have already wired thousands of dollars to this guy. But stupidity on this scale is really, really expensive. Hopefully the scam-detection abilities of many thousands of naive, well-intentioned, churchy Americans will be greatly improved by this whole sordid saga.
Fortunate that this judge recognizes the scammer that tried to use this Christian group. If the suspicions pan out, they should throw him in a hole and forget him.
I thought it came out that they did have permission from the parents.
Ping!
Looks like the group’s Dominican “lawyer” is a human trafficker, wanted by the El Salvador government and Interpol.
I am headed to Haiti in ten days.
I hope you have plenty of cash on hand. Just sayin’
1) It illegal to take children out of Haiti right now, even with their parents’ permission, unless government permission is also obtained.
2)Even under normal circumstances, there are tight restrictions, and for good reason — because there are plenty of desperate parents who knowingly sell their children to traffickers. There is obviously no way to determine whether someone taking children across the border actually has permission from their parents and/or is not taking them for illegal purposes, unless some major government approval processes are carried out first, and the children have valid passports that can identify them as the same children for whom permission has been given to take the out of the country.
3) Many of these children were handed over to the group by people who weren’t their parents.
4) Silsby induced both parents and other people who handed over children to her with false claims about the facilities they would be taken to, giving them the impression that she already had an orphanage with a school and swimming pool. She also told them they could come and visit the children any time they wanted. Ummm, how were they going to do that, when they’re Haitian citizens who need passports to cross the border into the DR, and when there’s no legal record of these children ever having been taken into the DR, and when Silsby had no permanent location for the children?
5) Laura Silsby, the leader of this group had been warned in advance by Haitian officials, Dominican Republic officials, and other aid workers that what she was proposing to do was illegal and would likely lead to her group being arrested for child trafficking.
6) Silsby also attempted to gain possession of and transport 3 children who were already in the adoption process and about to be taken out of Haiti legally by their American adoptive parents, despite the adoptive mother having told her repeatedly (when Silsby kept calling their home offering to “help”) NOT to try to take their children anywhere. (Google “silsby” “pickett” if you missed that story.)
There are plenty of good reasons why the Haitian government wasn’t going to give Silsby permission to take any children anywhere, with or without permission from their parents.
Stay safe, and keep your scam-artist detector set on “high”.
Thanks for the follow up.
I am carrying in everything I'll need for my time there with a little extra in case things start to shake again (including self defense tools and a stash of greenbacks). I'm also bringing in 100 pounds of medical supplies.
As for safety...I've been in worse places and I'm frankly more concerned about the nasties that you can't see than I am about any two-legged critters. You should see the list of shots I've got to get...
What organization are you working with? Sounds quite different from Silbsy’s “organization” :-) You actually have a plan, and clue as to what’s actually needed to help the Haitian people!
In one account I read of the LDS relief work there, they’d sent someone in with expertise in structural engineering to inspect damaged homes, starting with the church members. A lot of these people are very reasonably afraid to re-occupy their damaged homes, because they don’t know how to evaluate whether they’re safe of not (not to mention that they’re afraid aftershocks or another earthquake could even collapse homes that weren’t already damaged).
I would think that in some cases, still-standing walls of partially collapsed buildings would make a good start for temporary shelters. Professional evaluation of partially collapsed structures would probably find many where at least part of the structure is still safe enough to pop a temporary tarp-roof on and re-occupy. Others could be made so with minor alterations to ensure that if walls collapse, they go outward, and not inward.
Yeah, the legless critters are big problem there. And there’s only so much you can do to protect yourself. I spent my preschool years in Rwanda, as my father was working for the US Embassy there. Even living in Western-standard housing, and following all the State Department-prescribed measures didn’t stop me from getting malaria, twice!
Gods word cautions us "not to be deceived" and for a very good reason.
We are doing this on our own. I have researched and identified four US based organizations that have been doing good things in Haiti for at least a decade (a basic criteria), are not aggressively pushing an agenda (another basic criteria), are not involved in adoption (ibid) and are not about self-aggrandizing but are about just getting things done.
I will be evaluating their organization, capabilities and resources. Based on what I can learn we will 'adopt' one or two of them and channel our efforts into theirs.
A few of my MD friends are already there but working in the MASH units, not the outfits I will be investigating.
btw...I picked up what the CDC termed 'a malarial type infection' surfing the Caribbean in the sixties...nasty stuff.
Ping
Couldn't possibly be that they know what they are doing....nah.
I don’t know of a single country which allows people to remove children with so-called verbal permission of some family members. When it happens it is called trafficking in children.
Some of these Idaho church folks sure are slooooowwwwwww to catch on when they’ve been duped . . . STILL!
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/top/all/6864852.html
” Jorge Puello, who has been a high-profile advocate for the American Baptists as they navigate the Haitian justice system, is in apparent violation of Dominican law for failing to register with the local bar association or obtain a license, said Jose Parra, vice president of the Dominican Lawyers Association. Parra said his organization was still investigating the situation and might file a complaint with the Justice Department, which could pursue criminal charges. Puello declined to comment in a brief telephone interview, saying he would be busy in court representing a U.S. firm seeking to establish a business in the Dominican Republic. He could not be located in court and did not return later phone calls. “
” Sean Lankford of Meridian, Idaho, whose wife and daughter are among those detained, said Puello provided his services for free. [apparently Lankford believes that the $12,000 dollars the families wired him was just for one-way “travel expenses”, which Puello requested after unilaterally announcing several days ago that he expected the group to be released and free to go after their first hearing] “He’s really shown himself to be completely trustworthy, and I truly believe he has done everything to help our people and to help us,” he said in a telephone interview from Idaho. Lankford said Puello contacted relatives of the Americans to volunteer his services. “
I hope all goes well for you but if by chance something bad happens due to the fact that Haiti is corrupt through and through make sure you realize that our State Department won’t do squat if they find out you’re a conservative who didn’t vote for the 0ne. Just sayin’
Again, as I shared on other threads from the Kansas Star, these people were “asked” to pay $300/head for the paperwork that was requested. They refused to pay it and were arrested shortly thereafter. They haven’t had adequate US representation from the State Department and now it appears that a scammer has made matters worse. Good lord, Hitlery is in the SoS and the zer0 won’t step up for white conservative christians.
I’m sure I’ll be fine, I’ve been around the block once or twice. Thanks.
There's no source for that claim other than an e-mail of unknown origin.
http://www.kansascity.com/703/story/1728522.html In fact, said the Rev. James Keller, pastor of Topeka’s Bethel Baptist Church, the group had tried to get the correct paperwork. In an e-mail from the Idaho church that organized the mission, Keller read that the group tried three times to acquire the paperwork before they were asked to pay $300 a head for the children to cross the border. Culberth’s group refused, Keller said, and before long they were arrested.
Who knows where the information in this e-mail came from (or for that matter, who at "the Idaho church" sent it to Keller). Maybe from a member of the group, who may have gotten the info from Silsby, who may have made it up. But more to the point, even if one takes the information in the e-mail as accurate, it was only after they'd repeatedly tried and FAILED to get paperwork -- which they were NEVER going to be given by any legitimate Haitian official, because there was no reason to let this crazy unqualified group take any children out of the country -- that finally some corrupt border guard offered to let them take the children out illegally if they'd pay the guard $300 a head. In a corruption-infested country, when there's no legal way to do something, it's not hard to find to somebody who'll help you do it illegally in exchange for a bribe, but that's hardly a defense for the people who were trying to do something illegal.
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