lit a candle 1d ago91. Read about Port Lafito last week, didn't expect this.
Their story
Gilbert Bigio was a Haitian businessman, often described as Haiti's first billionaire, and the founder of GB Group, a diversified conglomerate that grew from a steel mill into energy, consumer goods, logistics, telecommunications, real estate, and related Caribbean businesses. Born about 1935 into a Sephardic Jewish family whose roots traced…
Gilbert Bigio was a Haitian businessman, often described as Haiti's first billionaire, and the founder of GB Group, a diversified conglomerate that grew from a steel mill into energy, consumer goods, logistics, telecommunications, real estate, and related Caribbean businesses. Born about 1935 into a Sephardic Jewish family whose roots traced to Aleppo in the Ottoman Empire (today Syria), he belonged to a commercial lineage that settled in Haiti in 1896 and remained prominent in trade across three generations.
His uncle arrived from Aleppo in 1896 and his father about twenty years later, during the First World War, under a French naturalization policy that offered citizenship to certain Middle Eastern minorities. The family prospered in cotton, cacao, and campeche wood exports before moving into textiles, retail, industry, and trading. Bigio later recalled that most Jewish families in Haiti worked in textile and retail, while his own circle also ran a small steel mill, distributed edible oils, and had banking interests.
According to Dominican Today and family-linked reports that followed his death, he began his business career in 1957 as a partner in a small department store. In 1972 he helped inaugurate Aciérie d'Haïti (Haiti Steelworks), the country's first steel plant, and founded what became GB Group around that industrial base. By the 1980s the steel business held a near monopoly on commercial steel in Haiti. The group later expanded through Huileries Haïtiennes (edible oils, soaps, detergents, and consumer distribution), energy and fuel marketing, telecommunications partnerships (including Digicel-related holdings), real estate, logistics, and banking-related ventures. GB Group came to employ thousands across Haiti and neighbouring Caribbean markets.
A major regional expansion came when GB Energy, a GB Group subsidiary, agreed in late 2011 to acquire Chevron's petroleum distribution and marketing businesses in the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Sint Maarten/St. Maarten, a package reported to include more than 200 Texaco-branded service stations, airport facilities, and import terminals. The deal followed an earlier 2009 acquisition of Texaco stations in Haiti and aviation-fuel concessions at Haiti's main airports. The group also developed Port Lafito, a private industrial and container port complex near Port-au-Prince that opened in the mid-2010s and was promoted as Haiti's first Panamax-capable private port. Bigio retired as CEO of GB Group in 2018; his son Reuven Bigio became the group's chief executive while Gilbert remained associated as founder and chairman in public descriptions of the firm.
Bigio was the de facto leader of Haiti's tiny Jewish community, at times estimated at only dozens of people. He was not personally religious in a strict sense, yet he kept Haiti's only Sefer Torah and hosted High Holiday gatherings at his Pétionville home when the community was larger. His wife Monique converted to Judaism with help from a visiting Miami rabbi. He served for many years as Israel's honorary consul in Haiti; his son Reuven later succeeded him in that role. In a 2004 Jewish Telegraphic Agency interview he said Haitians showed respect for Jews and admiration for Israel, and he insisted he had not experienced antisemitism in Haiti. After the January 2010 earthquake, an Israeli field hospital was reported to have operated on Bigio family property, and Jewish media covered relief work involving Haitian Jews and the IDF.
His public record also includes severe controversy. In the early 1990s the United States sanctioned Bigio and relatives for support of the military regime that ousted Haiti's elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide; those earlier U.S. measures are distinct from later Canadian actions. In October 2021 the Pandora Papers, reported by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and partners including the Miami Herald, documented Bigio family use of offshore companies and trusts in multiple tax havens, with wealth moved toward Miami and Switzerland, including a Bal Harbour property held through a trust. The same reporting noted that Bigio purchased Jeffrey Epstein's Mercedes Maybach in Paris for about 132,000 dollars from Epstein estate asset sales in 2020, a transaction recorded in estate accounting with no public evidence in those reports that the car purchase itself constituted a criminal act. On 2 December 2022 Canada imposed sanctions under its Special Economic Measures (Haiti) Regulations, alleging that Bigio and other Haitian economic elites had used their status to protect and enable armed criminal gangs through money laundering and corruption, and that his conduct threatened peace, security, and stability in Haiti. Bigio's U.S. counsel publicly denied any gang involvement. Canadian federal courts later rejected attempts to challenge the listing through judicial review without first exhausting the statutory de-listing process (decisions reported in 2024 and 2025). Bigio did not respond to some investigative requests for comment cited by ICIJ.
Gilbert Bigio died on 29 September 2026 in the United States at age 91, according to Le Nouvelliste and family statements relayed by Caribbean and Haitian outlets. Funeral arrangements were announced for 1 October 2026 in Hollywood, Florida. He is survived by his wife Monique and children including Reuven Bigio and Laurence Bigio, who have held senior roles connected to the family's business and media interests. Whatever judgment history places on the sanctions and offshore revelations, his career shaped large parts of Haiti's private steel, fuel, consumer, and port economy for more than half a century.
Biography adapted from English Wikipedia (Gilbert Bigio; GB Group); Le Nouvelliste (29 Sep 2026); Dominican Today; Haiti News; HaitiLibre; Jewish Telegraphic Agency (Larry Luxner, 2004); Miami Herald / Haitian Times Pandora. Wikipedia ↗
In their own words
“Our principle, which we respect daily, is to not mix in Haitian politics.”
Gilbert Bigio to Jewish Telegraphic Agency, February 2004 (also cited in later ICIJ reporting as a 2007 newspaper line in similar form).
“Even after three generations, we are considered foreigners. So we believe that to have good relations with the government, we have to step aside. We take care of business, and let them take care of politics.”
Gilbert Bigio, JTA interview, February 2004.
“On the contrary, the Haitians have a lot of respect for the Jews and a lot of admiration for Israel.”
Bigio answering whether he had experienced antisemitism in Haiti, JTA, February 2004.
“I don't think there's resentment against people who are rich here. If you know how to manage success, people admire you instead of hate you.”
Gilbert Bigio, JTA, February 2004.
“This transaction is part of our ongoing efforts to constantly search for new opportunities to expand our downstream fuel business in the Caribbean, keeping our focus to satisfy the needs of our customers in the markets where we operate.”
Gilbert Bigio as GB Group president on the Chevron/Texaco Caribbean acquisition, HaitiLibre, November 2011.
“Canada has reason to believe these individuals are using their status as high-profile members of the economic elite in Haiti to protect and enable the illegal activities of armed criminal gangs, including through money laundering and other acts of corruption.”
Canadian government statement on December 2022 sanctions naming Bigio and others (quoted via Reuters/ICIJ).
Photos
2Gilbert Bigio, portrait used with Le Nouvelliste death notice
by People Forever
Gilbert Bigio, formal portrait (Dominican Today obituary)
by People Forever
Wild how much of Haiti's fuel and steel traces back to one guy