Latest update September 2nd, 2026 10:02 AM
Crime Chief says…Execution-style murders will drop
By Michael Jordan
With the recent dismantling of the notorious ‘Fine Man’ gang and some drug trafficking organizations, Crime Chief Seelall Persaud foresees a drastic drop in the mass killings that have plagued the nation for almost six years.
But statistics for the first seven months of this year make disturbing reading: 128 people were murdered compared with 92 people for the corresponding period last year.
But Persaud pointed out that of this year’s murder victims, 31 were slain during the mass killings at Lusignan, Bartica and Lindo Creek, for which the Joint Services blamed the late Rondell Rawlings and his gang.
Ronald Waddell
In August, a specially-selected team of army ranks cornered and killed Rawlins and Jermaine Charles, called ‘Skinny’, at Kuru Kururu on the Soesdyke/Linden Highway.
Since then, there has been a marked reduction in killings of this nature.
Some observers also attribute this drop to the apparent dismantling of the so-called ‘phantom’ gangs, blamed for other execution-style deaths.
“Clearly, execution-style killings have a nexus to organised crime (such as the ‘Fine Man’ gang and drug trafficking gangs), Persaud told Kaieteur News yesterday.
“Once we have dismantled these gangs, all things being equal, we are likely to see a reduction in that type of murder.”
Rondell
It is believed that the Rawlings gang killed over 55 people during its five-year reign of terror.
In addition to the three massacres this year, the gang is blamed for the deaths in April 2006 of Minister of Agriculture Satyadeow Sawh, two of his siblings and a security guard; the beheading in 2005 of Agricola resident David Barrow, called ‘Gurple’, and the killing of 16-year-old Shamika Boyce and deportee Paul Persaud; the slaughter in February, 2006, of three Mekdeci Mining Company (MMC) security guards and five other people; and the August 2008 execution of five Kaieteur News pressmen at Eccles, East Bank Demerara.
The ‘phantom’ gangs are blamed for several unsolved killings dating back some five years.
Jermaine Charles
These include the gunning down outside the National Cultural Centre in November 2003 of 21-year-old Buxtonian Kwesi Williams; the murder of Sophia resident Adrian Etienna, whose skeleton was found aback of the Botanic Gardens; the Diwali Night, 2003 execution of six people; the January 2004 execution of Princes Street resident Shafeek Bacchus; the gunning down on January 30, 2006 of journalist Ronald Waddell; and the killing last March of Rondell Rawlins’s sister, Marcyn King.
Guyanese businessman Roger Khan, who is incarcerated in the United States on drug charges, has alleged that he assisted in fighting crime when the country was under siege by criminal gangs.
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