Mentioned previously, but melanin can be produced from cultured bacteria. Its expensive not because it has a high marginal cost of production, but because there is a low demand for research chemicals. If someone wanted 1000 kilograms of melanin, it would not cost $400/gram.
I'm not an expert, but i have a hard time imagining the cost and risk of human trafficking and then extraction would exceed the cost of mass bacterial culture. Industrial bacterial culture is commonly done in the biofuel industry and I'm sure elsewhere and this would not require a huge amount of investment to accomplish.
Maybe melanin is a secondary downstream product/revenue stream for haitian trafficking, but I'm pretty confidant its not the primary purpose.
Kim is not universally liked among the hack scene, but he has clearly planted his flag in the ground. If Kim physically harmed, every non state sponsored infosec group in the world will go apeshit and they are not going to accept any accident story.