Arrest Of Heavily Armed Former U.S. Military Members In Haiti Sparks Many Questions

We know their names, and where they were. But no one has given a public explanation for what several former elite U.S. service members were doing in Haiti — and why they were driving without license plates, carrying an assortment of automatic rifles, drones and other gear.

The men face charges of being part of a criminal conspiracy, the Haitian Times reports, after being intercepted at a routine police roadblock.

"They said that they were here on a 'government mission,' " Miami Herald reporter Jacqueline Charles told NPR from Port-au-Prince on Wednesday. "They did not specify which government, but then they did tell the police that ... their boss was going to call their boss."

The implication, Charles says, is that someone high in Haiti's government would be able to free the heavily armed group — and she adds, "members of the administration of President Jovenel Moise did try to get these gentlemen released from police custody — but that did not work."

Haitian police arrested the five Americans on Sunday afternoon, along with a Haitian man and two Serbians. They were driving two vehicles that were stopped at a police checkpoint near Haiti's central bank in the capital, according to the Miami Herald.