A Houston-area woman who came to play a central role in an incomplete arms deal struck between the Haiti National Police and a firm led by Bryan Seaver, nephew of late country singer Dolly Parton, has a record of prior financial fraud allegations.

The deal to supply Haitian security forces with semi-automatic rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition has only been partially fulfilled, and at least $7 million of Haiti’s public funds are missing, with the money last traced to an escrow account held by the Texan woman, Ellie Soto.

The multimillion-dollar agreement between the Haitian government and Seaver’s company, Fencebridge Strategic Risk, had an unusual arrangement in which the security firm was to be paid for the weapons consignments through Soto.

Haitian sources confirmed to the Miami Herald that they had sent at least $15 million to Soto, but Fencebridge is yet to receive roughly half of those funds, causing delays as armed gangs launched deadly attacks and police were running out of bullets. Also assisting with the deal was former GOP Congressman Mark E. Green of Tennessee. Green denied having any involvement in how the payment method was structured.

Legal and investigative records from Texas show that Soto from 2013 to 2019 engaged in a series of ventures that the state’s courts found amounted to defrauding investors of hundreds of thousands of dollars in total.

In 2022, a Texas grand jury indicted Soto for securities fraud. Soto, who was born in Costa Rica and now lives in Sugarland, a Houston suburb, ended the case with a plea agreement and pretrial diversion.

Soto’s record raises further questions about what kind of due diligence, if any, was done by Haitian authorities, Fencebridge or U.S. regulators before the agreement was concluded and export permits were issued.

Haiti’s justice minister, Patrick Pélissier, who oversees the national police, told the Herald that the Fencebridge contract was approved by the country’s court of auditors and the payment arrangement was worked out among Haiti’s finance ministry, the country’s central bank and Fencebridge.

“Ellie Soto’s name was never mentioned anywhere,” Pélissier said. “I never saw that name.”

It was only after the weapons failed to arrive and he reached out to a law firm in Boston to pursue legal action over the contract, Pélissier said, “that the name Ellie Soto appeared.”

“The actor that concerns me is Fencebridge, and the legal action we are pursuing in the American justice system is against Fencebridge,” the justice minister added.

The Roberson Law Group, based in Boston, confirmed to the Herald that it was finalizing an agreement to represent the Haitian government in its effort to recover the money. The firm has tried reaching out to Soto, but has yet to file a lawsuit, attorney Kerby Roberson told the Herald.

“They are determined to recover the money through all legal means,” he said. Roberson also said that his firm had contacted Fencebridge, which also did not respond.

Fencebridge, in a statement to the Herald, said that it was in regular contact with its Haitian counterparts and was aware that the Haitian government was taking active steps to recover the funds.

“The Minister of Justice knows how to get in contact with us, and I’m sure our contacts are keeping him informed on our progress,” said Andrew Day, Fencebridge’s chief operating officer.

The Herald tried to contact Soto multiple times via email and a phone number listed to her firm, Tranmex, LLC, but received no response.

Allegations in Texas

In 2014, Nancy Zapotek, a Texas woman, sued Soto and two of her firms — GWK GP and First Solid Energy Group — for fraudulently inducing an investment of $147,000 to drill oil and gas wells south of San Antonio. Zapotek was also told she would get a 1% limited partnership in the venture and the first payments to her would be made by the end of March 2014.

“No wells were ever drilled and no payments were ever made,” Zapotek’s attorneys alleged in the lawsuit.

Soto and her firms did not file any response to the allegations. The court awarded Zapotek $155,000 at an annual rate of 5% till the amount was paid.

Naphtha Transportation, a Texas company run by former U.S. Army veterans, filed a similar suit against Soto two years earlier, in 2012.

Naphtha alleged that Soto and her firm had leased three belly dump trailers — a type of machinery used in road construction and site excavations — for $7,500 a month, but did not pay the amounts and refused to return the trailers.

“I started Naphtha Transportation to have a business to fall back on when the Army no longer needed me and brought several other mobilized reservists on board,” Keith Schallenkamp of Naphtha wrote in a court filing. “Ellie Ramos Palma (Soto’s then name) was the first person we did business with and she defrauded us, ruining our business before we even got it off the ground and costing us several hundred thousand dollars.”

Naphtha claimed damages of at least $1.5 million. Soto, the case records show, did not respond in the case. A year later, the county judge presiding over the case found that Soto had defrauded Naphtha and awarded the firm roughly $840,000 with a 5% annual interest rate until paid.

Soto filed for bankruptcy in 2015, records show. But Naphtha alleged that Soto had “channeled money to entities created by her and otherwise hid money from creditors through the bankruptcy proceeding” to avoid paying the court mandated amounts.

“The movement of these assets to these entities should be seen by the court as a way to defraud the bankruptcy estate and her creditors,” Naphtha’s attorneys told the court in a 2016 filing.

The trustee in Soto’s bankruptcy case also complained to the court that despite providing sworn statements that her oil companies, GWK and First Solid, had no value, Soto had entered into a deal to sell oil and gas leases, wells, equipment and production revenues to a British firm for $7 million. The firm allegedly paid Soto $100,000 as an advance as part of the deal but the sale never closed and she never returned the funds, the trustee’s filing states.

The trustee, Naphtha Transportation and other creditors eventually agreed to settle the case in 2018. Naphtha received a little more than $150,000, a fraction of the amount it had initially been awarded.

In 2022, a Texas grand jury charged Soto with securities fraud, theft of property and misapplication of fiduciary funds.

Prosecutors from the Texas State Securities Board alleged that she had taken $100,000 from two investors by representing to them that the funds would be used to develop a senior living facility in Victoria in south-central Texas that would yield them “millions of dollars.” But Soto transferred the funds to her personal bank account and withdrew them in cash.

The criminal case ended with Soto filing a plea agreement to enter a pre-trial diversion program in May, 2023.

The Haiti deal

The details of how Soto came to be involved with the Haitian arms deal are unclear.

Fencebridge’s contract had been in the works in 2025 without her involvement, with the firm’s president holding meetings with Haitian officials at the upscale Hotel Karibe in Port-au-Prince.

Green, the former chair of the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee who resigned from Congress in July 2025, had at least one meeting with Soto in Fort Lauderdale to discuss their ventures in Haiti, he said. Green said he wanted to make a deal to supply cement to Haiti; Soto wanted to pitch the country’s government on a separate deal to supply fuel.

After learning about the Haitian police’s need for weapons and the desire of the head of the police to cut ties with a longtime supplier, Green said he could help.

The contract was finally signed in October 2025, the Herald learned. Soto became the conduit for receiving the Haitian government’s $15 million partial payment on the contract. Who decided to route the government’s funds through Soto remains unclear.

Fencebridge told the Herald that Anthony Madu, an escrow attorney based in Orange County, California, controlled the account to which the funds were sent. Fencebridge said he denied the firm access to the money.

Andrew Day, Fencebridge’s chief operating officer who lives in Key West, said that Madu “only took orders from Ellie.”

“After our attorneys reached out to him several times, Madu told them that he had sent all the funds from that account to Ellie,” he said. Madu told the Herald that he “disposed the money according to the instructions,” but cited attorney-client privilege and declined to provide details.

The current whereabouts of the funds remains unclear.

Those funds, Pélissier said, belong to the approximate 1.5 million Haitians who have been forced out of their homes by armed gangs.

“When you look into their faces, you see they can’t afford to lose $7 million,” he said. “They are already living under the threat of armed bandits; that’s money to address the security crisis and they won’t lose that money. I’m clear on that.”

In addition to pursuing legal action, Pélissier said he has reached out to U.S. officials. Because of a U.S. embargo on arm sales to Haiti, companies must seek permits from the State Department and Department of Commerce.

“I’ve also reached out to U.S. officials to see if their investigative arm can give us some support,” Pélissier said.

The contract, he said, went through normal procedures and was approved by the Superior Court of Auditors and Administrative Disputes, the independent government body tasked with signing off on contracts.

It was then the responsibility of the ministry of finance and the central bank, he said, to work out the payment details with Fencebridge.

“The person’s name on the contract is Anthony Madu,” Pélissier said.

Madu’s banking information was provided to the Haitian government by Fencebridge, Pélissier said.

But Day denied the allegation.

“Fencebridge had never heard of Madu prior to the contract being finalized,” he told the Herald in a statement. “We’re not particularly concerned about placing blame on anyone besides Madu and Soto — we simply want the issue resolved.”

Parton’s awareness of or involvement with Fencebridge is unclear. Day declined to reveal the firm’s current owners or whether Parton — or her estate — had any involvement in it.

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