Dredge owner gunned down allegedly by former employee

…2 licensed firearms missing

As the Guyana Police Force dig deeper into the death of Brazilian national 36-year-old Antonio Da Silva, whose body was found at a mining camp in Akaiwanna, Cuyuni, Region Seven, Acting Commissioner of Police, David Ramnarine, on Thursday indicated that the Police Force are acting on suspicions that the dredge owner was murdered by a former employee.
According to initial reports, Da Silva met his demise while managing operations at his gold mine in Region Seven, when he was brutally gunned down by cross-border bandits armed with rifles and handguns in a brazen attack in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

The incident, which lasted for some eight hours – from 17:45h on Tuesday until 02:00h on Wednesday — allegedly involved a gang of about six to eight armed men rummaging through the camp and later carting off an undisclosed amount of raw gold. Later, the bandits took Da Silva about 500 metres from the site and shot him several times before fleeing the scene.
Moreover, Guyana Times understands that several attempts were made to contact the Police Force, all of which were to no avail. However, ranks were dispatched to Akaiwanna early on Wednesday morning to launch an investigation into the murder.
In responding to queries as to what may have prevented GPF from reaching the area during the robbery, Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan pinned the blame on the lack of resources. This is as he noted that in order to access such far-flung operations, it would require equipment such as ATVs or for ranks to be flown into those locations.
Ramjattan defended the GPF, saying, “That’s another challenge — assets. We are pleading for assistance in that regard. So we are going to have challenges because we have huge tracks of land to cover to reach some of these mining concessions, and we really can’t put police men in all the mining concessions. We are trying.”
The Minister was backed by Acting Top Cop Ramnarine, who noted that in such extensive mining camps as the one operated by Da Silva, personal security measures are usually put in place.
“His camp being an extensive one, it is not unreasonable to assume that he would (implement) some level of his own security,” Ramnarine relayed. As to the extent/type of security, he said he would not comment.
He highlighted that based of ongoing assessment, firearms which were registered to the now dead man has not been recovered from the scene.
On that note he conveyed, “As a result of the investigations still underway, the deceased was licensed to carry a shotgun and a .32, and those are missing at this point. Definitively, his two firearms cannot be accounted for.”
Nevertheless, the Acting Commissioner of Police pointed out that these are preliminary findings. As such, he stated, “What I do know — which is very disturbing to us, but (is) not uncommon in these instances — is that it appears as though there was a possible involvement of a former employee of the deceased.”
Meanwhile, based on information reaching this publication, the attackers are also suspected to be Brazilian nationals, most of whom shared some relation with the now dead man. This newspaper understands that Da Silva was aware of conspiracies to invade his camp ongoing for some months now, but was nonetheless ambushed.