Two young men from Texas had an elaborate plot to conquer an island near Haiti with a sailboat and a makeshift mercenary army, namely by slaughtering all of the men and using the women and children as sex slaves.
Gavin Rivers Weisenburg, 21, and Tanner Christopher Thomas, 20, had their bizarre plot foiled, and are now facing charges from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Texas.
Weisenburg and Thomas wanted to take over the island of Gonave, which is controlled by Haiti, with a “mercenary force,” per a report from CBS News.
Gonave has a population of 100,000 and is the largest island off the coast of Hispaniola, the island that includes both Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
The primary purpose for seizing the island was “carrying out their rape fantasies,” the Department of Justice said in a news release.
Texas creeps indicted in wild plot to invade tiny island to kill the men and use women and children as ‘their sex slaves’: feds https://t.co/JGBvJ5qYXX pic.twitter.com/RVsnBifFED
— New York Post (@nypost) November 21, 2025
The “mercenary force” to help them accomplish the mission would have been comprised of homeless people from Washington, D.C.
“Weisenburg and Thomas planned to purchase a sailboat, firearms, and ammunition, then recruit members of the District of Columbia-area homeless population to serve as a mercenary force as they invaded Gonave Island and staged a coup d’etat,” the release said.
“Weisenburg and Thomas intended to murder all of the men on the island so that they could then turn all of the women and children into their sex slaves.”
The violent plot earned them charges of conspiracy to murder, maim, or kidnap in a foreign country.
The two young men also face charges of producing child pornography in a related count.
They both took steps in recent years to advance the plan.
Beyond learning Haitian Creole, Weisenburg joined the North Texas Fire Academy to learn command protocols, and he traveled to Thailand so he could learn how to sail, per a report in the New York Post.
Thomas meanwhile joined the U.S. Air Force in order to acquire military expertise for the invasion.
He got his position changed from Ramstein Air Base in Germany to Andrews Air Force Base in the D.C. area, allowing him better access to homeless people for building the mercenary army.
Weisenburg and Thomas face substantial prison time.
“If convicted of the federal conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country, Weisenburg and Thomas face up to life in federal prison. If convicted of the federal production of child pornography charges, both face at least 15 years and up to 30 years in federal prison,” the Department of Justice said in the release.
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