Last Friday the police seized 23 AK-47s from a vehicle in Schoonord, West Bank Demerara. Three weeks before that they had found 10 AK-47s near the No. 11 Village Public Road, Corentyne.
Now these are not the 9 mm handguns our local criminals might arm themselves with for the purpose of robbing a supermarket; these are assault rifles originally designed for battle purposes. While our domestic crooks would be happy to lay their hands on one, it is hard to see them being possessed of the organisation or the contacts which would allow them to import 33 of them in less than a month. If they did indeed have that capacity it would suggest they had the kind of larger strategic purpose in mind which might cause officialdom here a few sleepless nights.
The two basic questions in relation to the AK-47s are who brought them in and why. In relation to the first of these it should be noted that according to the police the weapons are US-made, so must have come into the country via the sea-route. Given the number of AK-47s involved and their presumed source, it is, as said earlier, highly unlikely that our locally-based felons had the means or connections to set this up.
Where the Schoonord case is concerned there is a clear Venezuelan linkage; Jonathan Gans, a Venezuelan has already been charged, while Randy Jagdeo, a Guyanese, turned himself into police after a wanted bulletin for him was issued. A third man is still at large. Jagdeo, however, has a history, having been charged in May last year with inciting persons to commit treason. The charge, which was subsequently dismissed, related to a statement he had made about the Guyana-Venezuela border controversy.
In the instance of the No. 11 seizure, three Guyanese have been held, although the background to that has not emerged.
All of this comes in the train of two disturbing events which occurred last year and for which the government has given no explanation, despite the fact that one of them, at least, had an undeniable Venezuelan connection. The most serious occurred in October 2025 when a bomb exploded in a city Mobil gas station, killing a six-year-old child. Venezuelans are currently before the courts charged in relation to that matter.
Police said at the time that the man who allegedly planted the bag containing the bomb had entered Guyana illegally via boat the same morning along with another Venezuelan. Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum said he had confessed, and was affiliated to a gang known as ‘R Sindicato’.
Five months earlier the East Ruimveldt Police Outpost and GPL substation had been the targets of blasts which caused considerable structural damage but no injury to persons. While no one has ever been held in connection with that incident the police issued wanted bulletins for three men, one of whom was a Brazilian known as Flavio Tasso and two of whom were Spanish speaking.
If the alleged Mobil perpetrator was indeed affiliated to the Sindicatos, then the possibility arises that all this has something to do with the gangs on our western border more especially given the Venezuelan connections of later incidents. And in that regard it must not be forgotten that the GDF has been coming under attack from Sindicatos on the Cuyuni river with increasing frequency.
The now defunct Stabroek News has pointed in the past to the insecurity of that frontier and the ease with which it would be possible to destabilise parts of this country by incursions of illegal Venezuelan miners and/or gang members. Caracas simply would not require a formal armed invasion. Since Venezuela has given off strong signals of a lack of optimism about the outcome of the ICJ case, is it conceivable that it had a Plan B in which Guyana’s gold-mining areas could be infiltrated and governmental control undermined?
Certainly the Venezuelan government has always ignored the firing by Sindicatos on the GDF patrols, and where the last one was concerned at least, a Minister was reported in the Venezuelan press as having denied that it ever occurred. There is, however, a caveat to this hypothesis: Since the abduction of former President Maduro, the current administration to our west could not be seen to be openly associated with the Sindicato gangs at any level, which does not mean to say that there isn’t a tacit understanding between them given the convenient convergence of their objectives.
Since the advent of President Donald Trump to office the criminal groups in what is called the Mining Arc, stretching from the border with Colombia to the Imataca, as well as their colleagues elsewhere in the region, have been on notice that Washington wants to take on the narcotics gangs. If they were in any doubt about it, they had only to see the attacks by the Americans on what were said to be drug boats in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
While Venezuelan criminal organizations like the notorious Tren de Aragua had spread their tentacles into other Latin territories like Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Chile, among others − even into the US − English-speaking Guyana in a general sense had escaped. This expansion had occurred in circumstances where owing to the economic crisis in Venezuela crime had become less profitable there.
But in a context where Caracas was especially concerned about what they call ‘reclamation’ because of the ICJ case; and where this country had suddenly acquired a wealth status it didn’t have before and was taking in large numbers of Venezuelan refugees among whom gang members could hide, perhaps they saw opportunities in moving here. Up to the end of last year they would have had the confidence that the Caracas authorities would at a minimum not have interfered in their activities in this country, especially on the border. Perhaps they still have that confidence.
But if the Sindicatos were in any doubt about American intentions they were disabused two weeks ago when Southern Command turned its attention from sea to land and bombed the base of what was said to be the leader of Tren de Aragua, going by the nickname of Niño Guerrero. This was in the south-east of Bolívar state, which lies across the border from us.
It has caused many questions to be raised in Venezuela about the total absence of due process and related matters, the lack of evidence for the killing of Guerrero, and the fact that it was not reported by the Venezuelan authorities, but by President Trump.
Be all that as it may, it has to be said that the gangs across our border have a diversified portfolio which includes crimes such as sex trafficking, kidnapping and in this instance, gold-mining. It has been reported that their power in the mining areas is exercised through violence and extortion, while the miners are kept in conditions of modern slavery.
While it has gone largely unremarked here, over the last few months the Venezuelan authorities have been periodically sending in the military to deal with illegal mining in parts of Bo2lívar state, and the attack on the Tren de Aragua base was preceded by a military occupation of the mining areas around. In addition, it was reported that what was thought to be US investors toured several of the gold mines as well as the processing plants of the Venezuelan Mining Corporation which is owned by the government.
Leaving the criminal aspects aside for the moment, the Guyanese authorities should be asking themselves where are displaced Venezuelan miners (some of them, at least) likely to go?
El Tiempo has provided some background into the gold-mining areas between Las Claritas and Kilometer 88 where the base was sited. It is said that the largest gold reserves on the continent are located between the two towns, and in the 1990s two Canadian companies obtained concessions to mine there. The mines were expropriated by Hugo Chávez between 2008 and 2010, following which armed criminal gangs, i.e. Sindicatos, were allowed to establish themselves in the area.
The feature went on to say that since 2012 control of the area has been held by a group led by a man nicknamed Juancho. In 2015 he was joined by one of the leaders of Tren de Aragua, Johan Petricia, who was fleeing the law. The two established an alliance, and it is thought that Petricia’s presence there caused Guerrero to settle on it as a refuge after the government dismantled his prison headquarters in 2023.
According to the BBC, even when he was in prison Guerrero was able to seize control of gold mines in Bolívar, among other things. It also said that in other countries part of the modus operandi was to form alliances with local criminal organizations.
It must be understood that there are different criminal gangs (Sindicatos) controlling various parts of the Mining Arc of which the Tren de Aragua is one. From our point of view, however, the authorities have to keep a special eye on this organization because of its size, its experience in foreign countries, the extent of its criminal networks, its ability to work with local criminal groups, and the amount of finance it can muster to achieve its ends. What must be understood, however, is that as American investors move into Venezuela’s gold-mining areas, ours come under especial threat from a range of Sindicatos, especially not excluding Tren de Aragua.
The AK-47s which were seized by the police may constitute evidence of the extent to which we are under threat in an entirely new kind of way. Were they, for example, intended for use on the western frontier, and are there other AK-47s around which have not yet been found? And do the authorities really know who comes into this country from Venezuela? The evidence such as it is does not lend to public confidence.
Confronting this new threat will require high levels of professionalism from our security services, especially the police, who in particular have historically been subject to politicization. We can no longer get by with that approach; our integrity as a nation depends on government accepting that expertise and competence come before political loyalty.
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