A guilty verdict delivered by a federal jury in Miami earlier this week against a powerful Dominican Republic financier set a precedent for a similar complaint filed last week against a former Haitian president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and eight of his acolytes.

A high-living businessman who owns a private jet, Luis Alvarez Renta, was found guilty on three counts of racketeering and one of fraudulent money transfer, in violation of the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act. In a complex scheme, he used his companies in the Dominican Republic to get letters of credit from Banco Intercontinental, or Baninter, in Santo Domingo to obtain loans from banks in Miami. The proceeds of the loans were subsequently transferred by wire into his personal accounts in America and elsewhere. The practice caused the collapse in May 2003 of Baninter, the assets of which were about $2.2 billion.

As reported in The New York Sun on May 23, 2003, the governor of the Dominican Central Bank had accused the officials of Baninter of setting up “an association of criminals [to commit] an unprecedented fraud.” The bank officials gave themselves, their friends, and their acquaintances huge loans, some of which were never repaid. Also, the bank was used for illegal transactions, including laundering of money from drug transactions. Some officials of Baninter were quickly locked up. But Mr. Alvarez Renta was in Paris awaiting confirmation as his country’s ambassador to France. The French authorities refused to accredit him.

The government of President Fernandez, who was elected last year, decided to sue Mr. Alvarez Renta in an American court because some of the fraud alleged was carried out in America and the defendant holds dual Dominican and American citizenship. Press reports from Santo Domingo said Mr. Alvarez Renta will have to reimburse Baninter about $174 million, an amount that includes treble damages.

The Alvarez Renta case bears resemblance to the suit filed last week in the same Miami federal court against Mr. Aristide, his former finance minister, and others. The Haitian interim government chose to file the suit in America because many of the alleged transactions took place in this country in violation of RICO. Moreover, many of the defendants live in America and some American companies were recipient of the ill-gotten profit, especially from the state-controlled telephone company, Teleco. According to the complaint, “tens of millions of dollars” were stolen from the Haitian treasury and Teleco in an elaborate scheme that used shell companies both in Haiti and in Florida.

There is a link between Mr. Alvarez Renta and Mr. Aristide. The Sun article regarding the Baninter scandal stated, “What’s more troubling is the connection of Baninter to corrupt officials in Haiti, some of whom are implicated in drug trafficking. Through a major investor, Luis Alvarez Renta, Haiti’s President Aristide has carried out several business transactions in the republic next door and elsewhere. “The collapse of several money cooperatives in Haiti was also attributed to their being looted to “invest” in Baninter. Mr. Aristide had praised the pyramid-type cooperatives that promised exorbitantly high interest rates as “people’s capitalism.” More than $200 million was lost by Haiti’s poor in this cruel scheme abetted by Mr. Aristide, nicknamed “the priest of the shantytowns” for his concern for the poor, especially those of Cite Soleil, the vast slum north of Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince. But he became such a buddy of Mr. Alvarez Renta that the Dominican financier put his private jet at the priest-turned-president’s disposal when he traveled to Mexico and Trinidad and Tobago for meetings.

The verdict against Mr. Alvarez Renta buttresses the case brought against Mr. Aristide in Florida to the dismay of some who argue that an American court has no jurisdiction or competence to try the former president who now lives in South Africa under the protection of President Mbeki’s government.

As the case unfolds, however, Mr. Mbeki will be hard-pressed to shield his protege, because earlier this year the South African president had to let go of his deputy president, Jacob Zuma, who is accused of entering into a secret agreement with a French weapons concern in return for about $75,000 in bribes. Based on what Mr. Aristide did in Haiti, the alleged transgressions of Mr. Zuma could be considered petty theft.

It is hoped that the new anticorruption resolve shown by the reform minded governments on both sides of the border in Hispaniola will become a deterrent for con artists in high places who often cast themselves as saviors of the poor while lining their pockets and living high off the hog.

Mr. Joseph, a former Sun columnist, is the ambassador of Haiti to America.