A Haitian American organization has filed suit in federal court against the American Red Cross, the International Red Cross and related entities, accusing the well-known charities of exploiting “the poverty and calamities” of an impoverished Haiti to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in the name of humanitarian aid only to mismanage and misappropriate the funds to enrich themselves.

The class-action lawsuit was filed Monday morning in the U.S. District Court for Southern Florida on behalf of the Haitian Diaspora Political Action Committee and individual Haitian-American plaintiffs, including Frantz St. Fort, the husband of a former director of the Haitian Red Cross in Port-au-Prince. The complaint before Judge Cecilia Altonaga accuses the Red Cross affiliates, including the Haitian Red Cross, and members of the leadership teams, of leveraging the 2010 earthquake and several subsequent natural disasters in 2016, 2018, 2021 and 2023 for personal gain. More than a half billion dollars were raised in the name of relief efforts, the lawsuit says.

Instead of going to help the victims of the disasters, the suit claims “significant portions of these funds were diverted for personal gain and administrative overhead, leaving the intended beneficiaries in Haiti to continue enduring hunger, poverty and despair.”

The plaintiffs are seeking over $750 million dollars in compensatory damages, $250 million in punitive damages, and a full accounting of the funds raised for Haiti.

“The Red Cross is a powerful international non-profit organization with offices worldwide,” the suit said. “The defendants have leveraged this power and influence to exploit and abuse the trust placed in them by the public. Haiti is just one of many poor countries the Defendants have routinely exploited for personal gain.”

Among the examples listed in the complaint: A $13 million project to improve access to clean water and sanitation. It faltered, the plaintiffs said, due to mismanagement, leaving communities without the promised benefits. Instead, the Red Cross launched a hand-washing education campaign, which was criticized “as ineffective in the absence of access to water and soap.”

In a statement to the Miami Herald, the American Red Cross rejected the claims and defended its efforts in Haiti. The nonprofit said that it “is proud of our response and recovery efforts following the earthquake in Haiti as we navigated the unique and complex realities on the ground.”

“Our long-term recovery program engaged more than 50 partners over 10 years to reach 4.5 million Haitians with a diverse range of interventions, from housing and community reconstruction to economic recovery assistance to cholera prevention and treatment,” the Red Cross said. “Money donated for Haiti earthquake relief went into a restricted account that could only be used for programs and services for Haiti. Designated funds are never used for operational deficits or payment of debt.”

A detailed financial breakdown of Red Cross spending is available at redcross.org/haiti, the group said.

“There is no merit to the Office of the Haitian Diaspora and the Haitian Diaspora Political Action Committee lawsuit regarding American Red Cross relief and recovery efforts in Haiti,” the agency’s statement said. “The American Red Cross has spent and distributed all funds designated for Haiti relief on shelter, emergency relief, health, cholera prevention, water and sanitation, livelihoods and disaster preparedness.”

The earthquake that struck Haiti on Jan 12, 2010, was one of the hemisphere’s worst disasters. It brought down private homes and government offices while nearly destroying most of Port-au-Prince. Though the exact death toll has always been a matter of debate, the Haitian government at the time placed it at 316,000. Another 1.5 million Haitians were injured and 1.5 million people were left homeless. Many of the victims remain in temporary housing more than 14 years later as the country now itself held hostage by armed gangs.

After the quake, Haiti experienced several other natural disasters including hurricanes and a magnitude-7.2 tremor that struck the southern region of the country in August 2021, five weeks after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise. At least 2,000 people were reported dead and 53,000 homes destroyed.

Plaintiffs say their allegations against the Red Cross is based on investigations and discussions with Haitians. They note that days after the 2010 earthquake, the charity “moved swiftly to create a platform to raise money.“

“In the ensuing days and weeks, the defendants used pictures of the devastating damage in Port-au-Prince to raise money from donors all over the world. Within a few weeks the defendants raised millions of dollars, and in total from the period 2010 through 2024, they raised in excess $500 million,” the suit says. “This money was supposed to be spent in Haiti, rebuilding roads, hospitals, schools and helping victims of the earthquakes. Instead, the defendants misused the funds to pay exorbitant, unjustified salaries to their CEOs and executives, enabling them to live extravagant lifestyles while the intended beneficiaries of the donations suffered from hunger, poverty and disease.

“From 2010 to present, the defendants continued their fraudulent pattern of raising money to help Haiti recover from the multiple earthquakes and other natural disasters under false” pretenses.

This is not the first time complaints have been made about the Red Cross, which received an outpouring of donations after the 2010 quake, or about other organizations that made promises after the earthquake. A 2015 investigation by ProPublica and National Public Radio found that despite raising nearly half a billion dollars after the quake and celebrating it work, the Red Cross repeatedly failed in its efforts in Haiti.

“The Red Cross says it has provided homes to more than 130,000 people. But the actual number of permanent homes the group has built in all of Haiti: six,” the report found, noting that “confidential memos, emails from worried top officers, and accounts of a dozen frustrated and disappointed insiders show the charity has broken promises, squandered donations, and made dubious claims of success.”

The Red Cross at the time refused to discuss how it had spent the hundreds of millions of dollars donated for Haiti, the report said, while adding that its “reporting shows that less money reached those in need than the Red Cross has said.”

The Red Cross, which at one time considered giving every Haitian victims a cash payout as it debated how to best help quake victims, is not the only aid organization that struggled to spend money in Haiti — or to live up to its promises to assist the country with recovery and rebuilding efforts.

A story in the Miami Herald on the 10th anniversary of the earthquake reported that an investigation led by the late Dr. Paul Farmer, former special adviser to the United Nations secretary general, found that less than two-thirds of the billions of dollars worth of aid pledged to Haiti during the first two years after the earthquake had actually been disbursed.

Aid organizations like the U.S. Agency for International Development and nations that had promised billions to aid Haiti’s recovery had failed to construct housing, create jobs and provide other assistance, the report said. Even France and the United States’ promise to rebuild the country’s largest public medical facility, the Hospital of the State University of Haiti, remains unfulfilled 14 years later.

Just how much money Haiti received in aid after the earthquake remains unclear. The Haitian government and the international community created the Interim Haiti Recovery Commission, co-chaired by former President Bill Clinton, to track donations and ensure donors did not duplicate efforts. The commission never received any funding directly and very little of what was promised went to the government of Haiti. However, after President Michel Martelly came to power, he disbanded the commission, leaving the country with no oversight of the billions promised.

The Miami lawsuit claims that “despite raising significant funds for Haiti’s recovery,” the Red Cross and its affiliates failed to deliver on commitments to rebuild critical infrastructure, such as homes, schools and hospitals.

The suit seeks class-action status to represent at least 2 million people residing in Haiti and the U.S. who were victimized by the disaster and the thousands of individuals who donated to the Red Cross to aid earthquake victims.

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