Haiti: kidnapped American YouTuber has been released, announces gang leader Lanmo 100 Jou

“I was released. Glory to God. Christ is King.” Famous American YouTuber “YourFellowArab” was released after being kidnapped by the 400 Mawozo gang in Haiti. Addison Pierre Maalouf, his real name, announced the news on his X account this Sunday, March 31.

The YouTuber followed by 1.5 million people arrived on the Caribbean island on March 14 to meet Jimmy Chérizier, aka “Barbecue”, the leader of the most powerful gang in Port-au-Prince. But just 24 hours later, he was captured under the orders of another gang leader, Lanmo 100 Jou. The latter is on the list of people most wanted by the FBI, indicates the Daily Mail.

“I was kidnapped solely because of the color of my skin. I was kidnapped because I was a “white”,” Addison Pierre Maalouf explained in a tweet before specifying that he would not give more details until he “returned home”.

On heaven, we pray to God.” According to the media Haiti 24, Lanmo 100 Jou confirmed having released the American YouTuber in a video, the veracity of which is currently not verifiable.

In these somewhat confusing images, Addison Pierre Maalouf is sitting on a sofa, smiling and his passport in his hands, alongside his captor, the gangster Lanmo 100 Jou. The latter shows the place where he was detained “with air conditioning”, he points. With them, a Haitian whose identity could not be verified, who was also detained with the YouTuber. “We had a great time,” he said, calling the gang “family.”

However, the gang had demanded 600,000 in ransom to free Addison Pierre Maalouf. $40,000 had already been paid, but the kidnappers demanded a much larger sum.

Addison Pierre Maalouf is of Lebanese origin and resides in Atlanta, United States. On his social networks, he presents himself as a “traveler, actor and storyteller (storyteller, Editor’s note)”. He is known for appearing in dangerous countries where he rubs shoulders with members of drug cartels and other gangs, in his YouTube videos. One of his videos, for example, is titled “100 hours of living with the Mexican cartel”, or “Hunting pirates in the Red Sea”. He likes the taste of risk and enjoys it. In one of his last tweets he wrote: “If I die, thank you for looking at what I posted. If I live, all glory to God.”

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The news of his hostage-taking had worried the web given the context of violence which has ravaged Haiti for several weeks. His YouTuber and streamer friends (a person who publishes content on Twitch, Editor's note) then spoke up to try to reassure their community by providing some information. YouTuber Miles “Lord Miles” Routledge, followed by 115,000 people, published on X the last messages he exchanged with Addison Pierre Maalouf before his kidnapping. As a good Samaritan, he assured that he had offered “to volunteer to make the exchange with three mercenaries”.