Vitel’homme Innocent’s picture on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” list of fugitives suggests a crazed man – eyes wide and wild, teeth bared. It’s the photo you might expect for a gang leader accused of destabilizing a nation, who claims to be under divine protection and who has a $2 million bounty on his head for alleged kidnappings.

In person, he projects a different image, at least to guests. Powerful, yes, surrounded by armed acolytes who jump at his glance – but also carefully solicitous, with a cooler full of sandwiches for his visitors, and a tendency to wax philosophical in conversation.

After weeks of negotiations, CNN entered Haiti’s gangland earlier this month to speak with Innocent, whose armed group Kraze Baryé is among the allied armed groups that have plunged Haiti into a crisis of lawlessness. He is an influential voice among the country’s gang leadership, and one who believes that peace must be restored. But under what conditions?

Now, it is almost a ghost town. Cars and motorbikes began to follow our car, their drivers masked, long guns poking out the windows. Some vehicles bore the fluttering red and blue Haitian flags of a ragtag diplomatic convoy.

After about 45 minutes, a gold car pulled in front and stopped. Innocent himself stepped out. He was slight and apparently unarmed, dressed in a bright striped batik suit and soft loafers, with a tangle of gold chains and a cross draped round his neck. He led the way into a rococo mansion, where elaborate gold velvet chairs and settees, crystal in display cases and arrangements of plastic flowers hinted at previous owners.

“The Haiti we had, Haiti, the pearl of the Antilles that we grew up in, could still return to being the most beautiful,” Innocent said, speaking mildly in Haitian Creole. “One day, someone could sit in Champ de Mars and have an ice cream.”

Today, the capital’s iconic Champ de Mars park is a war zone between gangs and police. After years of political turmoil, institutional neglect and a series of brutal natural disasters, Haiti’s ill-fortune was pushed to its nadir last month with an unprecedented wave of gang violence that has effectively shut down Port-au-Prince.

The city’s main seaport and airport are dark. Government ministries have been taken over by refugees fleeing gang attacks. Bodies lie among uncollected trash in the streets and the neighborhoods still free of gang control have seen the rise of fear-filled vigilantes, who kill and burn suspicious outsiders.

Signs of the city’s dysfunction were evident within the Kraze Baryé stronghold. Inside Innocent’s sprawling house, the air was still and hot; his foot soldiers labored to get a generator running to power air-conditioning or a fan. No one had bothered to remove the wrecked sedan that still sat next to the pool, with its blown-out windows and four flat tires.

But the man on the gold sofa preferred to talk about a brighter future – one that he claims Haiti’s gangs are prepared to usher in.

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