PLANO, Texas (KETK) – Two North Texas men have been indicted for planning to invade Gonave Island off the coast of Haiti, to make the island’s women and children into sex slaves.
Gavin Rivers Weisenburg, 21 of Allen, and Tanner Christopher Thomas, 20 of Argyle, were indicted by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Texas this week on charges of conspiracy to murder, maim or kidnap in a foreign country and production of child pornography.
U.S. Attorney Jay R. Combs’ office alleged that between August 2024 and July 2025, the two men planned to recruit a mercenary force of homeless people from Washington, D.C., to unlawfully invade Gonave, an island that’s part of the Republic of Haiti.
Weisenburg and Thomas allegedly planned to invade the island to carry out “rape fantasies,” according to Combs’ office. Their plan included buying a sailboat, firearms and ammunition before sailing to the island, murdering all the men there in a coup d’état and turning all the island’s women and children into sex slaves.
Combs’ office alleged the two men took concrete steps toward these plans by learning to speak the Haitian Creole language, recruiting others to join their plan and Thomas even enlisted in the U.S. Air Force to learn military skills for their invasion.
Weisenburg and Thomas could face life in prison if convicted of conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country and another 15 to 30 years if convicted on child pornography charges. The case against them is currently under investigation by the FBI and the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations.
Since the Haitian Revolution ended in 1804, the island nation has been a repeated target of foreign interventions, including from the United States, which occupied the island for 19 years starting in 1915.
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