A key witness in a bungled U.S. narco-trafficking case that prompted the Justice Department to investigate allegations of wrongdoing by U.S. drug agents in Haiti has been extradited to South Florida to face charges himself as the sole defendant accused of conspiring to distribute cocaine and heroin.

Gregory George, described as a lieutenant in a smuggling ring that operated out of Haiti’s private Terminal Varreux, arrived in Fort Lauderdale Friday afternoon on a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s plane after Haiti Justice Minister Jean Roody Aly signed the extradition order.

George was indicted by a federal grand jury in Miami on April 30 on one count of conspiring to distribute multiple kilos of Colombian cocaine as well as heroin from July 2013 to June 7, 2015, knowing it would be imported into the United States.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment. George is expected to have his first appearance in Miami federal court on Monday before a magistrate judge. His case is being prosecuted by Kurt Lukenheimer, the deputy chief of the office’s narcotics section.

The Miami Herald broke the story about the DOJ probe into the bungled DEA case in August of last year.

George, who was jailed in Haiti for three years before his extradition, is expected to play a central role in the widening investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office into the Panamanian-flagged MV Manzanares case. The boat arrived in Port-au-Prince from Colombia in April 2015 hauling bags of imported sugar and between 700 to 800 kilos of cocaine and 300 kilos of heroin with an estimated U.S. street value of $100 million.

In a previous interview with the Herald, George said there had been multiple attempts on his life while inside the Croix-des-Bouquets civil prison, where he was sometimes kept in isolation for his protection.

Sources familiar with his case say the most recent attempt on his life occurred over a week ago when he was beat up inside the prison. They told the Herald that there have been at least a half dozen attempts on his life, including one where he was locked in a van and tear gassed during an authorized transfer. The incident occurred the same day, Aug. 17, 2017, the Herald published its investigation into the DOJ’s probe.

While unloading the sugar from the Manzanares after its arrival in early April 2015, longshoremen stumbled across the hidden stash of drugs and a lawless free-for-all quickly unfolded. A host of people, including police officers assigned to Haiti’s National Palace and a judge, have been accused of grabbing the drugs. Also implicated was the former commander of Haiti’s anti-drug unit, Joris Mergelus. Mergelus was accused of taking bribes to hinder the investigation into the Manzanares case, which has become known as the “sugar boat” case. He has vehemently denied any links to drug traffickers.

Mergelus is also being accused of destroying evidence in the ongoing Manzanares drug smuggling investigation. Mergelus was removed from his post in 2017 by Haiti’s police chief, Michel-Ange Gédéon, and has since been assigned to a desk job at the Haiti National Police pending the outcome of an internal investigation.

The bungling of the sugar boat investigation came to light after two veteran DEA agents filed whistle-blower complaints, which triggered the DOJ’s investigation into the effectiveness of the DEA’s drug-fighting efforts in Haiti. An initial review by the Office of Special Counsel found “a substantial likelihood of wrongdoing,” in DEA’s Haiti office.

George allegedly was responsible for retrieving multiple kilos of cocaine and heroin from cargo vessels from Colombia that docked in Port-au-Prince. His nickname is Ti-Ketant, a nod to notorious Haitian cocaine kingpin Beaudouin “Jacques” Ketant, who had accused former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of accepting drug-related bribes before having his 27-year sentence in a U.S. prison cut in half.

Of 16 individuals arrested by the Haiti National Police in the Manzanares case, only George remained in jail. He has come under fire from Haitian businessmen implicated in the case. They have accused him of lying.

Miami attorney Joel Hirschhorn, who represents a member of the Mevs family that owns Terminal Varreux, has said the port’s security was not loose. and drugs had not been smuggled through the port. The family even paid to build a police narcotics substation at the port in 2017, he said. But that was two years after the Manzanares incident.

When Google developers gather in Silicon Valley on Tuesday to hear about the company’s latest projects, thousands of miles away in Haiti hundreds of budding software developers will be tuning in.

For the first time, digital marketers, web coders and entrepreneurs in Haiti’s small but emerging tech community will get a chance to follow the Google I/O Developers conference, which is being live-streamed to them at the Karibe hotel in Port-au-Prince. About 600 local developers and entrepreneurs have signed up for Google I/O Extended Port-au-Prince, which will be followed by workshops and training sessions on web development and artificial intelligence. And all of it will be conducted in Creole.

The one-day event is being organized by a group of Google employees of Haitian descent, said Naisha Silva, Google program manager for emerging markets and one of the organizers, who spent her early childhood in Haiti.

“We are over 50 Haitians and friends of Haiti around the world who have created a community within the company, and are working toward building a bridge between the company’s resources and Haiti’s startup ecosystem,” Silva said. “Haiti is a part of our identity, and we’d like to engage in its development while working for one of the most resourced and innovative companies in the world.”

The initiative is part of a growing trend in Haiti, where internet penetration, now at 19 percent according to data by Hootsuite, is on the rise. Digicel, a leading telecommunications company in the Caribbean, says it counts about 2 million smartphone users among its clientele. Last year, Haitian President Jovenel Moïse announced the first national incubator for entrepreneurs, Alpha Haiti, in downtown Port-au-Prince.

Haiti, with its 11 million residents and young population, very much remains a pen-and-paper society, with lawmakers for years refusing to adopt an electronic signature law to reduce the time it takes to create a company out of fear of technology. And while the country recently joined the growing Airbnb community, Haitian consumers and those who would benefit from employment outside of the country, for example, still have no way to receive money or make purchases through online payment sites like Paypal because banks have not made the switch.

But such realities don’t seem to be stopping tech-savvy Haitians from trying to come up with the next tech outfit in the country, or from taking advantage of the growing number of technology conferences every year, like Haïti Numérique, DevXpo and Haiti Tech Summit.

While Haïti Numérique showcases different technologies with its annual digital forum, the tech summit has focused on giving Haitians a chance to hear from global social entrepreneurs and startup innovators like Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey and venture capitalist Ben Horowitz. An investor in Airbnb and Facebook, Horowitz spoke at the first tech summit in 2017 and will be back when the summit takes place June 20-22.

“It is incredibly inspiring to see the commitment of the Haitian diaspora… leveraging technology to build opportunities for the next generation back home and partnering with locals to do it,” said Marc Alain Boursiquot, the founder of tech-based hub Banj in Haiti.

Boursiqout, who organized the DevXpo conference with support from Facebook’s global Developer Circles program, has also collaborated with Haiti Tech Summit and the Google team. In the walk up to Tuesday, the team hosted a hackathon at Banj, where Haitian entrepreneurs were challenged to create a job-creating app. The winner will be announced on Tuesday during the Google I/O event in Port-au-Prince and will receive $5,000 to implement the idea with the support of a local incubator.

The prize money, Silva said, is being sponsored by Hope for Haiti, a nonprofit that focuses on seed funding for entrepreneurs in the south of Haiti.

“I know its an uphill battle,” she said. “But for the few it really impacts it’s worth it to see where they might take it.”

The United Nations Security Council on Friday renewed its justice-support peacekeeping mission in Haiti for a final six months, after which it will maintain only a special political mission in the crisis-ridden nation after Oct. 15.

Council members voted 13-0 in favor of the final six-month renewal, with the Russian Federation and Dominican Republic both abstaining. The Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, called the withdrawal of peacekeepers in six months — as Haiti continues to face an ongoing political and economic crisis, deteriorating humanitarian conditions and State Department travel warning — premature.

“For the Dominican Republic [the peacekeeping mission] will come to an end at the same time we are expecting to see elections held in Haiti, a moment that can always fall into instability,” Ambassador José Singer Weisinger said. “We believe that we should weigh the moment and the conditions for this … The work of this Security Council is to ensure that there is… international peace.”

Haiti, which has a messy history with elections, is scheduled to hold legislative and local elections in October. Last week, during Security Council discussions on the situation in the country ahead of Friday’s vote, U.S. Acting Permanent Representative Jonathan Cohen stressed that the timing of the elections should not be a factor on when the peacekeeping mission ends.

“We do not believe this Council should link [the justice support peacekeeping mission’s] scheduled transition to legislative and local elections in Haiti scheduled for October 2019,“ Cohen said.

The United Nations first deployed a blue-helmeted peacekeeping force to Haiti in 2004, consisting of a large multinational military presence with soldiers from Brazil, Chile, Nepal and other nations. They steered Haiti through several hurricanes, tumultuous elections and a deadly 2010 earthquake.

In 2017, with a mixed legacy of controversy and stability, the Security Council began the withdrawal of the military soldiers but left foreign police officers to continue to provide support to the U.N.-trained Haiti National Police force. The smaller peacekeeping mission, which is now ending in October, focused on justice, human rights and police development.

In a brief statement on Friday, Cohen said the U.S. welcomes this final renewal of the peacekeeping mandate, and was mindful of the challenges ahead for Haiti. The country’s political actors, he added, need to engage in dialogue to find a lasting solution to the ongoing economic and political challenges.

Last month, following a series of tumultuous events including a 10-day lock down of the country in February by the opposition, the lower chamber of deputies fired the country’s prime minister, Jean Henry Céant, and his 21-member cabinet after only six months. The parliament has yet to vote on President Jovenel Moïse’s choice to replace Céant — former culture minister Jean Michel Lapin.

“This transition will mean a significant handover of responsibility into the hands of the Haitian government and its people,” Cohen said. “Now is the time for the government of Haiti to step up and assume its responsibility.”

For the most part, Security Council members have sought to provide a positive assessment of Haiti’s progress, with the United Nations’ help, over the last 15 years. Still, some nations remain nervous about what the lack of armed foreign police officers and armored vehicles may mean for the volatile country, which will now have to shoulder the burden of its own security.

“Haiti… has moved to a fully fledged political and economic crisis that has resulted since last July in a series of demonstrations and riots against the elevated cost of living, owing to inflation and the rapid depreciation of the local currency,” said European Union Ambassador João Vale de Almeida.

The country has seen more than 200 demonstrations since December, with protesters demanding the resignation of the president and denouncing the management of PetroCaribe, Venezuela’s discounted oil program with Haiti, in which the savings were supposed to be invested in social programs.

“The EU is concerned about the general situation in Haiti, “ Vale de Almeida said, adding that he worries about the ability of the Haiti National Police to conduct effective operations after peacekeepers’ withdrawal. “The persistent inability of the Haitian National Police and national authorities to control gang-related violence, with accusations of collusion and other dysfunctions, is of particular concern.”

Still, Friday’s decision did not come as a surprise. Diplomats have hinted that there is Haiti fatigue in international circles, and Haitians cannot expect the mission to stay forever. Earlier this year, a U.N. delegation visited the country to help prepare the report, which U.N. Secretary General António Guterres presented to Council members with a slew of recommendations, including the creation of a special political mission to continue some of the peacekeepers’ justice and security initiatives.

“The transition to a political mission… must be carefully managed and objectives-based,” Canada’s Ambassador Marc-André Blanchard warned last week. “The objectives that have not been achieved by [the peacekeeping mission] should serve as a starting point for the special political mission. Reducing the United Nations presence must also be gradual and carefully sequenced to minimize any negative impact and preserve hard-won gains made since 2004.”

Jean-Pierre Lacroix, U.N. under-secretary-general for peace operations, said the U.N. remains concerned about the political volatility, institutional fragility and economic stagnation that have exacerbated social tensions and adversely affected the humanitarian situation in Haiti. But, he said, “we trust in the capacity of the Haitian National Police to manage security” without international support.

Acknowledging that “significant improvements” in the professionalism of the Haiti National Police, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said “incidents of serious human rights violations, including cases of summary executions, continue to be reported, with limited accountability.”

“The national police conducts administrative investigations into the majority of allegations, yet judicial proceedings are rarely initiated against the alleged perpetrators,” she said. “In 2018, only 12 percent of cases of confirmed human rights violations were prosecuted, and no judicial measures were taken in the most emblematic cases. Perpetrators are consequently emboldened.”

While the special political mission will need to address these troubling human rights challenges, along with corruption and social grievances, Loune Viaud, the executive director of a Haitian nongovernmental organization, Zanmi Lasante, said the urgent humanitarian needs of women and girls, including sexual and reproductive health services for gender-based violence survivors, must also be addressed with the U.N.’s future presence.

“Watching a woman die because she reached us too late; seeing families devastated after losing a mother, a wife, or a daughter in childbirth are images one cannot forget,” Viaud said, noting that cancer is also an issue that primarily affects women in Haiti. “Childbirth should not be a death sentence in Haiti… No woman should die in Haiti because of lack of access to obstetric care or cancer.”