Bukele Promised to Hit a Haitian Gang Boss’s Mansion. His Troops Just Blew It Up.

A few days ago, someone on 𝕏 dared Nayib Bukele to go after the house of one of Haiti’s most feared gang bosses. The president of El Salvador answered the way he usually does. “Where is that house? Give us the exact address, and we’ll destroy it,” he wrote on 𝕏.

Then he did.

Around 2:30 a.m. Sunday, a Haitian police drone task force backed by Salvadoran soldiers hit a walled compound in Croix-des-Bouquets, just outside Port-au-Prince. It belonged to Wilson Joseph, the leader of the 400 Mawozo gang, who goes by the street name Lanmò San Jou. In Haitian Creole that means “death without a day.” Four helicopters circled overhead. Two were flown by the task force and two by Salvadoran troops, a source told the Miami Herald.

Joseph was not home. As many as 20 of his gunmen were, and local reports say they were killed. On Tuesday, Bukele posted the footage himself, with a caption in Creole so Haitians could read it first.

The post is in Creole on purpose. It was aimed at the people who have lived under 400 Mawozo, not at foreign reporters. It has been viewed nearly 13 million times.

A gang that made kidnapping a business

400 Mawozo is not a corner crew. It is Haiti’s largest criminal gang, and it is infamous for kidnapping people for ransom. It is part of the Viv Ansanm coalition, the alliance of gangs that has strangled much of Port-au-Prince and pushed out into the countryside.

For Bukele, this one is personal. On October 18, four Salvadoran aviation technicians serving with the UN-backed Gang Suppression Force were ambushed in gang territory. The Herald’s sources say the attack was carried out by the Chen Mechan gang with backup from 400 Mawozo. The four men have not been heard from since.

Bukele’s answer was to send roughly 2,000 to 2,500 more troops to Haiti. He called it a search-and-rescue mission. Most of those soldiers are working outside the UN force, under a direct deal between El Salvador and the Haitian government, Al Jazeera reported, citing AFP, AP and Reuters.

Haiti’s leader says thank you

The Haitian government is not complaining. Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé posted a still from Bukele’s video and said he “salutes the commitment of the Salvadoran forces in the fight against gangs.”

“Hats off to President Nayib Bukele, for your support and commitment to the national fight against gangs,” Fils-Aimé wrote, according to Africanews. He said the two countries would keep working together, along with the UN force, to “regain control of the territory and restore state authority,” and added in capital letters: “THE GANGS WILL GET NO SLEEP!”

Fils-Aimé is set to visit El Salvador next week to talk about the future of the Salvadoran troops in his country. The Dominican Republic, which shares the island with Haiti, said Tuesday it is also working with El Salvador against the gangs.

The strike did not happen in a vacuum. Days earlier, the head of the “Boston” gang, Mathias Saintil, died after a drone strike in the Cité Soleil slum, according to the Herald. Security forces have been hitting gang strongholds with explosive drones almost daily.

Washington knew it was coming

Secretary of State Marco Rubio made clear the United States is not running this. Speaking to reporters Sunday at Homestead Air Reserve Base in Florida, he said El Salvador is supplying its own airlift and is in Haiti under its own agreement “to go after the gangs that kidnapped their forces that were there.”

Rubio said Bukele called President Trump ahead of time to make him “aware of what he was doing, and the President understood why he was doing it.” He added: “We’re not actively involved in that effort.”

That is about as clean an arrangement as Washington could ask for. A close ally with a proven record against gangs is doing the fighting, with the host government’s blessing, on its own dime, while the United States keeps its own troops out of it.

The human rights groups weigh in

Not everyone is cheering. On Tuesday, Amnesty International USA posted that Bukele and Fils-Aimé “must ensure that all operations conducted by Salvadoran forces in Haiti comply with international human rights law.” Others have raised questions about the rules for troops operating outside the UN mission.

Bukele’s reply to Amnesty was one word.

He had a point. Amnesty’s post drew about 6,500 replies and roughly 1,100 likes. Bukele’s one-word answer has more than 117,000 likes.

Bukele has heard this criticism for years. At home, he locked up tens of thousands of suspected gang members, and El Salvador went from one of the most dangerous countries on earth to one of the safest in the hemisphere. The same groups warned him then, too. Salvadorans gave him a landslide anyway.

The Washington Post, carrying an AP report, called the Haiti offensive a political gamble ahead of an election. Maybe so. But for Haitians who have lived under kidnappers and warlords for years, the sight of a gang boss’s mansion going up in smoke looks less like a gamble and more like the first real pushback they have seen in a long time.

Joseph is still out there, and so are the four missing Salvadorans. Bukele has made it clear he is not going home until he finds them.