Masked gunmen walked into a bar at Old Road Eccles, East Bank Demerara on Friday night and riddled a businessman with bullets.
Leonard Mahadeo, 38, known as ‘Lenny,’ of 678 Section A Block X Diamond New Scheme, East Bank Demerara and Soesdyke, was alone at the Soca Paradise Bar when he came under fire from two masked men, both armed with what appeared to be assault rifles.
Mahadeo, who had been acquitted after a trial in 1996 for charges stemming from his alleged involvement in an international cocaine racket, had been the victim of another bar attack by a gunman in 2008. Senior police officials yesterday said he had always been on their radar in cocaine busts but there was never enough evidence to lay charges against him.
According to witnesses, Mahadeo, who had been drinking beers at the bar since earlier in the evening, was the lone customer when the attack occurred between 10.30 pm and 10.45 pm. They said he seemed to have been waiting on someone as he constantly checked his watch and kept looking at the door. Later, when the two men arrived and shot him at point blank range as he sat in a chair, it was reported that he did not scream for help although he saw the gunmen as they entered the shop armed.
“I saw two men walking into the shop with two big guns like AK and it seemed they know who they were going to, ’cause they begin walking towards Lenny. I did not look to see face or anything, I just lie on the ground and took cover. Gunshots start to rain and I remain in me spot for a good lil while until I hear a vehicle pull off and feel it was safe to come up,” the witness said. The owner of the bar, who asked not to be named, told Stabroek News that there was not much he could comment on as he, his wife, a waitress and Mahadeo were the only persons in the bar at the time of the shooting and they did not see much. The man said he and his wife were standing behind the counter and he was watching television when from a peripheral glance he saw a large gun and he dropped to the ground. His wife also said that she was watching television when she looked to the door and saw a masked man armed with a gun and she too dropped to the floor, covered her head and prayed for the best. She said that several shots rang out and she remained in her covered position. When they felt it was safe, she said, they got up and saw Mahadeo slumped in a corner; he had fallen out of the chair. He was lying in a pool of blood. The police were then called.
‘Knew something’
Members of the murdered man’s family were perplexed as to the reason for the attack. They said that he was a very jovial person and to their knowledge he did not have a grievance with anyone.
Speaking to Stabroek News, the man’s wife, who asked that only her first name, Mandy, be used, was still in a state of shock. Appearing somewhat dazed but very composed, she recalled fond memories of the man she said was her “rock and world” and “the best father anyone would want” to their four-month-old son.
“I can say honestly that I know no reason anybody would want to kill Lenny. He was so friendly with everyone and never tried to cheat no one. If you ask anyone who knew him, they would tell you how kind he was and how he just loved people,” she said.
She informed that she had been in a common-law relationship with the man for over nine years and last November the union bore a son. Mahadeo fathered five other children; four with his wedded wife, who many years ago deserted the marriage to live overseas and one with another woman. Recalling the last time she saw him alive, Mandy said that it was late Friday afternoon when Mahadeo said he had to go out. “He never told me that anyone and him fall out or that he got a problem would nobody and he would have, because he is the type—if he had a problem, he would confide in me. He is not into bad business he has dredges in the bush,” she said, while rejecting reports that her husband was involved in illegitimate businesses. She listed gold and diamond operations in the backdams of Mahdia among his interests.
“Maybe Lenny knew something would happen because yesterday [Friday] the baby was asleep and he would never wake him but he did and began to kiss him up and play with him as he slept but I took it for nothing then he left. I asked if he wanted me to wait on him but he didn’t answer,” she added.
Mandy also said that she tried texting him during the course of the evening to find out if he wanted the food she had prepared for his lunch to be used again for dinner but he never replied.
She later received a call from someone informing of his demise some time around 10.45 pm, but took it as a prank since Mahadeo and his friends were playful and would often joke around. It was the second call she received from a friend of his that convinced her. She subsequently went to the scene but was too struck by grief to view the man’s bullet-mangled body.
Suspected drug ties
Police sources said yesterday that Mahadeo, who had been found not guilty after a High Court trial for cocaine trafficking, was suspected to have played a part in several huge cocaine busts over the years but he had always managed to keep his hands clean.
According to a senior official, there were suspicions that he was somehow connected to the two bags of cocaine that were found at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport Timehri on March 10. A source had told this newspaper that it was suspected that the 10 kilogrammes of cocaine which were thrown over the airport fence may have belonged to a drug trafficking ring that was using aircraft ground-handling staff to sneak drugs onto outgoing flights.
On May 2, 1996, Mahadeo had been among seven persons charged in an alleged 50 kilogramme cocaine racket cracked by cops from Guyana and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).
In his early twenties and a resident of 144 Amla Avenue, Prashad Nagar at the time, Mahadeo was arraigned before then Chief Magistrate K. Juman-Yassin, charged with transporting and delivering 2.272 kilogrammes of cocaine in April of the same year. The investigations between the two countries were conducted between December 17, 1995 and April 26, 1996 and targeted suspected drug organisations in both countries that were transporting Colombian cocaine into Guyana through Brazil and Venezuela and re-exporting to Canada. The suspicions were that once the drugs were in Guyana, the Guyanese players in the operations used passengers with carry-on baggage to get the drugs into Canada on commercial airlines.
Following a preliminary inquiry, Mahadeo was committed to stand trial in the High Court, during which witnesses from both Guyana and Canada testified. At the trial, for the first time locally, video recordings were used as evidence to show alleged illegal transactions.
However, there were unexplained changes in the scenes on the recording, which resulted in the jury returning a not-guilty verdict. As a result, the cases against the other defendants, who include a woman, a Guyanese policeman and a Colombian national, were later dropped.
As regards the previous attempt on his life, police said that on February 9, 2008 Mahadeo, a cambio dealer of Nandy Park, East Bank Demerara, was attacked by an armed man at Barr Street and Stanley Place, in Kitty. His relatives had declined to comment on that incident.
According to the police statement then, Mahadeo was sitting in his car when the gunman discharged several rounds at him and escaped. He was hit in the left side of his chest, right shoulder and left knee and was taken to the hospital. The police recovered six spent shells and four warheads at the scene.
