An official during the Aristide administration is accused of trafficking cocaine and appears in Miami federal court.

BY LARRY LEBOWITZ AND NANCY SAN MARTIN

A former security chief for ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide appeared in Miami federal court Monday on a cocaine smuggling case that highlighted U.S. complaints the Aristide government was soft on traffickers.

Oriel Jean, 39, is the highest-level Haitian official to be implicated in narcotics trafficking since the mid-1990s, when the nation was run by anti-Aristide military and police officers.

Jean, who was extradited from Canada last week, is charged with one count of conspiracy to traffic cocaine. He will be held without bond at the Federal Detention Center in Miami and could seek bond at a later date.

''This is a high-level official who used his position and authority to allow drug trafficking,'' said Joe Kilmer, a spokesman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

MORE ARRESTS LIKELY

Kilmer said more arrests are likely but declined to discuss whether Aristide was among the potential targets. Neither Aristide nor other members of his government are mentioned in the complaint.

The DEA, which has agents working out of the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, has long been investigating Haitian and Colombian drug traffickers who use the impoverished nation as a transshipment point.

The traffickers use Haiti as a drop-off spot for large quantities of cocaine and heroin later smuggled into the U.S. market, as well as a transshipment place for cash going to Panama and other money-laundering havens.

The Bush administration has been critical of Aristide's administration in the effort to stem the flow of drugs and last year declared that Haiti had ''failed demonstrably'' to combat drug trafficking.

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Jean served as chief of presidential palace security for Aristide from the beginning of 2001 until June 2003, well after Washington canceled Jean's U.S. visa because of the trafficking allegation against him.

Jean was arrested in Canada two weeks ago, after he arrived on a flight from the Dominican Republic, based on a hastily cobbled and sealed criminal complaint issued March 11.

In the affidavit, Special Agent Younjae Kim said the DEA built the case against Jean based information from four confidential informants who have provided reliable, corroborated information about other traffickers.

INFORMANTS

The first three have pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges and are hoping to have their sentences reduced in return for their cooperation. The fourth is a former Haitian National Police Officer who has not been charged with a crime and is cooperating under a limited immunity agreement with federal prosecutors in Miami, the affidavit showed.

Informant No. 1, a former Haitian drug trafficker, said that from the end of 2000 until June 2003, he paid Jean $50,000 for each plane-load of cocaine that Jean would allow to land in Haiti, according to the affidavit.

Informant No. 2 is a Colombian who lived 11 years in Haiti, where he received cocaine shipments from his homeland and distributed them to Haitians who smuggled them into the U.S. market.

$50,000 DELIVERY

Informant No. 2 told the DEA that Jean summoned him to a meeting in September 2002 at which Jean demanded a percentage of his profits. He said he agreed to pay Jean 10 percent of the cash he was receiving from his smuggling operations.

Two months later, Informant No. 2 said, he personally delivered $50,000 in cash to Jean -- 10 percent of the $500,000 in drug profits that he was sending to Panama through the Port-au-Prince airport. The informant said these payments continued through the end of 2002.

Informant No. 3, a Haitian who has confessed to smuggling cocaine into Miami in hidden ship compartments from 1995 to 2000, told the DEA he observed Jean take a cut of the profits from other traffickers.

FOURTH INFORMANT

Informant No. 4, an ex-Haitian National Police Officer, told the DEA about a money courier who was arrested in September 2002 at the Port-au-Prince airport while trying to smuggle $300,000 in U.S. currency to Panama. The money belonged to Informant No. 2. According to the complaint, Jean returned most of the money to the trafficker, minus his 10-percent ``fee.''

Jean's attorney, David Raben, gave no indication whether his client would be willing to cooperate against Aristide or others. After the hearing, Raben said his client intends to ``vigorously fight the charges.''