Port-Au-Prince (Haiti) (TIP): Haiti’s police chief on Wednesday accused a Venezuelan businessman who owns a security company in Florida of travelling to Haiti numerous times as part of a plot to assassinate President Jovenel Moise, who was killed last week.

Leon Charles, head of the Haiti’s National Police, said Antonio Intriago of CTU Security signed a contract while in Haiti but provided no other details and offered no evidence.

“The investigation is very advanced,” Charles said.

Intriago could not be immediately reached for comment.

Colombia’s national police chief has said that CTU Security used its company credit card to buy 19 plane tickets from Bogota to Santo Domingo for the Colombian suspects allegedly involved in the killing.

During a news conference Wednesday evening, Charles pleaded with Haitians to help officials track down suspects who remain on the run, including a former senator he described as a key suspect and is accused of providing weapons used in the July 7 attack.

Former Sen John Joel Joseph, a Haitian politician and opponent of the Tet Kale party that Moise belonged to, is one of five fugitives whom police say are armed and dangerous.

“We are looking for these assassins, and wherever they go we need to capture them, arrest them and bring them to justice,” Charles said.

In a video posted last year on YouTube, the former senator compared Moïse to the coronavirus, saying Haitians have died from hunger or been killed amid a spike in violence under his administration.

“Insecurity has infected every single Haitian,” Joseph said.

The police chief also announced the arrest of Gilbert Dragon, who led a rebel group known as the National Revolutionary Front for the Liberation and Reconstruction of Haiti. The group seized power in parts of Haiti after the 2004 coup that led to the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Authorities said they found several weapons at his house, including a saber, two grenades and an AR-15.

In addition, officers arrested a Haitian man identified as Reynaldo Corvington, who is accused of providing the suspects with housing and giving them sirens to use on top of their cars with help from another suspect, James Solages, a Haitian American who was detained in recent days.

Corvington owns a private security company called Corvington Courier & Security Service, which he established in 1982, according to its website, which provides tips on how to survive a kidnapping. (AP