Kidnapping for ransom became one of the most terrifying features of daily life in Port-au-Prince in 2020, with criminal gangs escalating their use of abduction as a revenue source as other criminal income streams were disrupted by the economic effects of COVID and political instability. Human rights organizations documented a significant increase in reported kidnappings compared to previous years, with victims drawn from across the socioeconomic spectrum.
Unlike earlier periods when kidnapping had primarily targeted wealthy Haitians and foreigners, by 2020 criminal groups were increasingly targeting middle-class professionals, small business owners, market vendors, and ordinary workers. The democratization of kidnapping targets reflected both the gangs’ expanding reach into new neighborhoods and their willingness to accept smaller ransoms from less wealthy victims, making abduction a viable revenue strategy across a wider range of potential targets.
Families of kidnap victims described the trauma of negotiating ransoms under extreme time pressure, often selling household assets, borrowing from extended family networks, and reaching out to diaspora relatives to raise funds that bore no relationship to their actual economic means. The process was designed to maximize financial extraction while imposing maximum psychological suffering.
The Haitian National Police acknowledged the kidnapping crisis but lacked the specialized capacity and intelligence infrastructure needed to effectively combat organized kidnapping networks. Several cases were resolved through family payment of ransom rather than police intervention, reflecting the reality that families in crisis could not afford to wait for an institutional response that might come too late or not at all.