Author(s)

Dorly Castaneda

Posted on 27 Mar 2026

The arrival of the Gang Suppression Force (GSF) in Haiti in April 2026 signals a surge, albeit inconclusive, in international commitment to stabilizing Haiti’s security landscape. A successor of the ‘outgunned and underfunded’ Multinational Security Support mission, led by Kenya, the GSF is expected to include 5 500 military and police officers and 50 civilian personnel by October.

Although the Dominican Republic has limited its support for the GSF to logistics for now, it has a clear interest in ensuring that this latest mission succeeds, given its shared border and overlapping security concerns. By contributing more actively to Haiti’s reconstruction, it can help curb the influence of organized crime within its own territory while supporting broader regional stability in the Caribbean. In order to do so, however, it must also confront the networks of corruption that sustain criminal networks.

Gangs as tools of political and economic power

While the GSF may succeed in weakening the power of gangs in Haiti, the underlying drivers behind the emergence and persistence of these groups will remain unchanged unless they are deliberately targeted.

Historically, gangs have been instrumentalized as tools of power in the country, used by the political and economic elite to mobilize voters, eliminate rivals, secure monopolies, and participate in the trafficking of drugs, weapons, natural resources and people. In recent years, however, these groups have slipped beyond the control of their patrons, instead becoming directly integrated into transnational criminal networks.

Gangs have swiftly expanded their reach from neighbourhoods in Port-au-Prince and surrounding towns into new territories, taking control of maritime corridors and road networks. Territorial domination allows them to generate revenue through kidnappings and extortion, whether by illegally imposing taxes on everyday activities, such as selling goods in markets or conducting religious services, or by charging tolls to enter or leave communities.

Control of transport routes also provides gangs with access to weapons, facilitates the trafficking of drugs and people, and enables participation in a range of other illicit markets, most notably the increasingly lucrative trafficking of eels. All of these activities depend on the support of transnational criminal networks and on the corruption of state actors and within influential economic sectors.

The role of the Dominican Republic

These same networks operate in the Dominican Republic, Haiti’s neighbour on the island of Hispaniola, and the rest of the Caribbean. Yet, despite regional initiatives, each country in the region continues to tackle illicit trafficking using isolated, unilateral and often low-capacity measures, such as border patrols, migration controls and security operations.

This fragmented approach creates a fertile environment in which criminal operations can thrive. Without joint intelligence and data sharing, coordinated border and maritime surveillance, or harmonized law enforcement strategies, traffickers can simply shift routes and jurisdictions to evade detection. These blind spots enable drugs, weapons and people to move illegally throughout the region.

Drug trafficking is becoming of public concern in the Dominican Republic. According to the Minister of the Presidency, José Ignacio Paliza, this activity has spread through the political class like a ‘cancer’. The latest report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime states that the Dominican Republic has become a well-established transit platform for cocaine in the Caribbean. In 2024, Dominican authorities seized 35 tonnes of the drug, but this represents only a fraction of the volume that made its way to end markets in Europe.

Indeed, 30 per cent of the cocaine seized in Europe in 2024 came from Caribbean trafficking routes, reflecting a dramatic rise in consumption on the continent. This expansion in trafficking has been accompanied by an alarming increase in domestic consumption of drugs such as cocaine, crack and opioids in the Dominican Republic, particularly among young people.

Transnational organized crime in the Caribbean also facilitates the trafficking of illegal firearms through the Dominican Republic and into the hands of Haitian gang members. Despite the fact that Haiti remains under a United Nations arms embargo, investigations indicate that some of the weaponry in circulation in the country entered through the Dominican border.

This movement occurs along two main routes. The first involves Haitian actors purchasing weapons on the Dominican illicit market with the support of Dominican citizens. These include firearms smuggled from the US and weapons diverted from Dominican arsenals, such as the 900 000 rounds of ammunition that were diverted from the Dominican army to Haitian gangs in 2024.

The second involves using Dominican territory as a transit corridor to transport weapons directly from the US to Haiti. Through these channels, Dominican criminal networks are helping to prolong the armed conflict.

A criminal revolving door

Haiti’s crisis has also resulted in significant forced migration. An estimated 1.4 million people were internally displaced in Haiti as of December 2025, while others sought opportunities across the border in the Dominican Republic.

Criminal networks exploit corruption and harsh Dominican anti-migration policies to maintain a system that effectively functions as a revolving door of irregular movement. Deported Haitian migrants can often return to the Dominican Republic shortly after being expelled by paying between 15 000 and 25 000 Dominican pesos to complicit officials.

The continued migration of Haitian people into the Dominican Republic, despite these restrictions, is reflected in the availability of labour in the construction sector. Although the partial border closure in 2023 and deportations carried out from 2024 initially reduced labour flows and slowed the construction sector, the sector rebounded in the second half of 2025. This recovery indicates that the labour supply once again met operational demands. It also suggests that smuggling networks continued to channel workers across the border through irregular routes, facilitated by corruption on both sides of the border.

The deployment of the GSF is likely to put further pressure on the Dominican Republic’s land and maritime borders. Forced displacement may intensify due to clashes between security forces and gangs, or retaliatory violence against communities suspected of collaborating with law enforcement. The border will also come under pressure as criminal economies in the Dominican Republic and across the Caribbean adapt to any disruptions that the GSF may cause to drug and arms trafficking routes.

A strategic opportunity

The Dominican Republic should build on the momentum created by the GSF deployment to confront organized crime operating both within its territory and across national borders. For now, the government has specified that its contribution will remain supportive, serving as a logistical hub by providing specialized medical care for GSF personnel and facilitating the delivery of essential equipment and supplies.

However, it should go further and address the internal conditions that allow cross-border criminal networks to flourish. This would entail reducing border permeability, tackling corruption within the customs service and security forces, strengthening port security, improving regulatory frameworks to prevent money laundering, enhancing the tracing of illicit financial flows, and investing in opportunities for vulnerable young people to reduce the recruitment base for gangs and criminal structures.

With these deeper reforms, the Dominican Republic can position itself as a key partner in Haiti’s reconstruction – leveraging its position as the country’s main commercial partner while contributing to the creation of shared stability across the island.