BY CATHERINE WILSON
Associated Press

A former Haitian anti-drug chief and an owner of a Haitian freighter pleaded innocent to drug charges Monday as U.S. investigators probe official protection for Colombian cocaine shipped through the Caribbean nation on its way to Miami.

Former anti-drug chief Evintz Brillant is charged with conspiracy, while freighter owner Elin Napoleon is facing four drug and conspiracy counts. Both face possible life sentences.

Brillant, 32, is accused of conspiring with former Haitian national police commander Rudy Therassan.

Based on reports from four informants, a criminal complaint filed in May in Miami accuses Brillant of opportunistically shaking down traffickers.

He allegedly seized $450,000 from admitted Colombian trafficker Carlos Ovalle and took payoffs for providing security to a Haitian trafficker and returning a passport to a smuggler. Informants understood that some of the money was passed along to others on the police force.

A former Haitian police officer-turned-informant also claimed that Brillant was being groomed as a replacement for Therassan as security chief for top Colombian drug suppliers.

Napoleon, 41, was accused earlier this month of being part-owner of a freighter that carried cocaine out of Haiti and arranging transportation once shipments arrived in Miami.

Napoleon was indicted along with Carlos Martinez, who prosecutors claim is a Colombian connection in Miami for receiving the cocaine.

The complaint named Michael Frantz Jeanty as Napoleon's Haitian partner on the shipping venture and as the leader of a major drug organization, but Jeanty was not indicted, often a clue of cooperation.

Five former Haitian government and police officials have been charged in Miami since Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide went into exile Feb. 29, feeding a wide-ranging investigation launched before his departure into cocaine transshipments through Haiti.

A crackdown on other Caribbean drug-smuggling routes through Jamaica and the Bahamas was announced Wednesday with the arrests of more than 50 reputed traffickers.