In April, CNN journalists were led to the 'home' of Haitian gang lord Vitel’homme Innocent and interviewed him. He is on @FBIMostWanted's Top 10, with a bounty of up to $2 million.
I mapped their drive and found his home here: 18.5278, -72.2314. Here's how👇🧵
I mapped their drive and found his home here: 18.5278, -72.2314. Here's how👇🧵
First, I did this because knowing the location of where a gang lord responsible for horrible violence is helpful, even if he might not be there after CNN visited. Vitel is the leader of Kraze Barye and is on the @FBIMostWanted list for taking hostages, and sanctioned by UN.
This is the footage I used to geolocate Vitel'Homme Innocent's house, where the interview was conducted. I'll go through some of the scenes to provide proofs of how I made the geographical matches, using Google Earth.
Source: youtube.com
Source: youtube.com
The first geolocation, and the easiest one thanks to the majestic mountain range surrounding Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, was at 01:04 of the video. We see a big wall, large factory roof, turn in the road, and a lovely mountain range. Location: 18.5447, -72.2359
The second geolocation was this brilliant little architectural oddity of the little street wall, that served its geolocatable purpose well.
The third and last on the route was the drive past this factory area, again we could see the mountain range in the background. But to narrow it down was this line of buildings and a little sand pile that was consistently present, even in past satellite imagery.
From studying the video quite closely, it's fairly clear that the roof would have been orange, given the colour in the video, and a lot of mansions have orange roofs in this area. The final area was just over 1.6km from the route videos, so it took a bit of scrolling to find.
Once finding the 'home' the CNN team met Vitel'homme Innocent at, it was fairly clear that was the location. Main giveaways were significant features such as the double triangle roof seen from the side, the entrance was at the end of the street, and construction next door.
One of the things that made this geolocation easier was a reference image I made of what the area would look like on a map, from what I could see in the footage. The image below shows just how much can be gleaned from footage alone, in comparison to the satellite image.
Wow this thread on geolocating a Haitian gang lord got a lot of traction.
Final note, this took me a few hours, and can be done by anyone willing to put in the time. If you want to learn how to do this type of research, I make free YouTube tutorials 👇
@bendobrown?si=lH5aCMtOLGLQz8eD" target="_blank" rel="noopener" onclick="event.stopPropagation()">youtube.com
Final note, this took me a few hours, and can be done by anyone willing to put in the time. If you want to learn how to do this type of research, I make free YouTube tutorials 👇
@bendobrown?si=lH5aCMtOLGLQz8eD" target="_blank" rel="noopener" onclick="event.stopPropagation()">youtube.com
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