Seventeen murdered at sea in two years

Oct 05, 2009 News

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By Michael Jordan

Pirates, gunmen linked to the drug and smuggling trade, and rogue soldiers are believed to have murdered at least 17 people at sea within the past 23 months.
The bullet-riddled bodies of the slain have washed up from as far away as the Pomeroon to the Corentyne.
Some of the victims have never been found and most of the perpetrators remain at large.
Pirates have been blamed for the majority of these deaths, members of the army for one, and gunmen linked to drugs and other illicit transactions are believed to have carried out nine of the killings.
Three other deaths in August may have been caused by a collision, but they may also be cleverly-concealed murders.
On October 12, 2007, a fishing trawler, named ‘Captain Jewel’, with its six-man crew, departed from the Meadowbank Wharf, with the intention of fishing between Guyana and Suriname.
But after setting sail, the vessel and crew disappeared.
In late October, the decomposed bodies of three of the crew were found in the Corentyne River.
It was clear that they had been murdered, since two of the dead men were bound hand and foot.
The victims were identified as Patrick Parboo, 20, the captain, Mahendra Gangadin, called ‘Bready’ both of Annandale Sand Reef, East Coast Demerara; and 29-year-old Mark Sylvester Persram, called ‘Buddy’ of Good Hope, also on the East Coast Demerara.
Still missing are the captain’s 20-year-old brother, Navinda Gangadin, called ‘Dar’; Davindra Persaud, 21, and Christopher Rooplall, 20.
The ill-fated ‘Captain Jewel’ has never been found.
“Nobody remembers us,” lamented Serojnie Rooplall, whose eldest son, Christopher Rooplall, is among the missing.
“Everybody just abandon us…even the government. They were giving us Public Assistance and then they cut it out, just like that.
“I’m not getting justice and I am finding it difficult to cope.”
Several suspected pirates were subsequently arrested and charged in Suriname following a rash of attacks on fishing vessels in the Corentyne.
But the killings did not stop.
In December 2007, the bodies of three Guyanese men, Paul Da Silva, Rudolph Da Silva and Junior Gomez, were found in Suriname after they had left for a trip to Venezuela, where they had operated a passenger boat service, earlier that month.
The killers were never identified.
But in March, 2009, the bullet-riddled bodies of Romeo De Agrella, 41, and his son, Clint De Agrella, 21, of Grant Hope, Pomeroon, were found at Shell Beach in the Barima-Waini Region.
Their boat, which also bore bullet holes, was also found but the vessel’s 250 horsepower engine was missing.
The two men were reportedly slain while heading home from a trip to Venezuela.
Romeo De Agrella was the uncle of Rudolph Da Silva, one of the three men who turned up dead in Suriname waters in 2007.
According to local police officials, the killings were believed to be drug-related.
Police have since charged Jerome Parkes, a 24-year-old dredge owner of the Lower Pomeroon, and Tyrone Da Silva and Lloyd Roberts with the murder of the De Agrellas.
In June, 2009, Fazal Hoosain, a well-known businessman from Number 69 Village, Corentyne, was travelling with other passengers in a Suriname ‘back-track’ vessel when a five masked men with rifles and handguns approached.
After firing warning shots to force the passenger boat to stop, some of the gunmen boarded the boat, disabled its engine and relieved the passengers of their cell phones.
They then forced Hoosain, who was reportedly carrying millions in cash, to accompany them in their boat.
Hours later, the crew of a fishing vessel found Hoosain’s bound and battered body in the Corentyne River.
Police detained three men for Hoosain’s murder, but they were never charged.
But two of the most disturbing cases occurred last August.
On August 11 last, Jainarine Dinanauth, his 10-year-old son Ricky, and boat captain Henry Gibson were heading to Hogg Island when their boat was reportedly struck by another vessel.
Dinanauth and Gibson’s bodies were found drifting in the damaged boat just off the eastern side of Hog Island.
However, ten-year-old Ricky Dinanauth’s body has not been found.
There is suspicion that their boat was rammed by a Coast Guard vessel. Green paint that was suspected to have come from a Coast Guard vessel of similar colour was also found on the wreck.
That suspicion escalated when three Coast Guard ranks were implicated in the abduction and murder of 24-year-old Bartica resident Dweive Kant Ramdass.
On August 20, Ramdass, who was employed with a gold and diamond buyer, was travelling to Bartica with $17M in cash for his employer when the ranks took him off the vessel in the vicinity of the Parika Stelling.
After relieving their victim of the cash, the Coast Guard ranks admitted to killing Ramdass and dumping him in the Bonasika Creek.
The Guyana Defence Force subsequently mounted an investigation into the possible involvement of Coast Guard ranks and the Hog Island crash.
However, the army has since stated that its findings were inconclusive, while the Guyana Police Force is still to complete forensic tests on the two vessels.
Then, two Saturdays ago, a trawler, the ‘Island Princess’, disappeared with its four-member crew while it was reportedly near Parika.
Police said that the body, believed to be that of  46-year-old Herstelling resident Rickford Bannister, was found at around 17:00 hrs on Friday between Anna Regina and Suddie.
The discovery came two days after the bullet-riddled and degutted body of trawler captain Titus Buckley Nascimento, 46,
was found at Zeelandia, Wakenaam seashore.
On Wednesday, the body of 25-year-old engineer Mahendra Singh was found on the Hamburg Island seashore.
Both of the badly-decomposed bodies had to be buried immediately after postmortems.
Still missing and also feared dead is 23-year-old Ryan Chin of Lot 39 Friar’s Rust, Linden.
Police are still to identify the perpetrators or ascertain why the men were slain.
These killings have not been discouraged by the July 2008 introduction of the Hijacking and Piracy Bill that prescribes the death penalty.

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