Haitian gangs run schools, clinics and foundations in place of an increasingly absent government, even as their criminal rackets help gang leaders amass funds and afford luxury homes with swimming pools in the hemisphere's poorest country.
"Gangs are getting stronger, richer, better armed and more autonomous," according to a 156-page report from a U.N. experts panel. It pointed to lucrative arms trafficking largely from the United States that provides gangsters with deadly arsenals.
The report concluded that gangs frequently use rape to terrorize and extort victims, demand money and control food supplies. They're also blamed for carrying out indiscriminate killings and hundreds of kidnappings, demanding ransoms as high as $500,000 for foreigners and prominent figures. Since April, a vigilante self-defense movement known as Bwa Kale has executed hundreds of suspected gang members, and the report also blames the movement for committing crimes and morphing into new gangs.
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