Trinidad: Alleged gang leader, wife and bodyguards killed in massacre

(Trinidad Guardian) Homi­cide of­fi­cers are cur­rent­ly on quadru­ple mur­der scene in Las Cuevas where re­put­ed drug and gun smug­gler, Vaughn ‘Sand­man’ Mieres, his wife and two oth­ers were killed.

Po­lice said high-pow­ered as­sault ri­fles were used.

 
It is be­lieved that the gun­men es­caped by boat af­ter the dead­ly shoot­ings.

Po­lice con­firmed one man, iden­ti­fied on­ly as “Shorto” who was re­port­ed­ly be­hind the as­sas­i­na­tion atempt of his chil­dren in June, led the at­tack. He was re­port­ed­ly shot and is now in po­lice cus­tody.

On June 12, gun­men opened fire on a ve­hi­cle trans­port­ing two of his chil­dren along Bel­mong Cir­clu­ar Road, near Prov­i­dence Girls’ Catholic School, a short dis­tance away from the Bel­mont Po­lice Sta­tion.

Three stu­dents were treat­ed for in­ju­ries and men­tal trau­ma, af­ter a dri­ve-by shoot­ing. The dri­ver of the van trans­port­ing the chil­dren, James Gor­don, of Mara­cas was al­so shot but man­aged to es­cape by run­ning away.

Two of the in­ju­red, aged 6 and 15, were iden­ti­fied as Mieres’ chil­dren.

They were tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for emer­gency treat­ment.

An­oth­er 18-year-old stu­dent was shot in her leg.

In May, both lo­cal and Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties claimed Mieres, the leader of a crim­i­nal gang, was as a key part of a hu­man traf­fick­ing net­work op­er­at­ing be­tween the two coun­tries.

Rel­a­tives of mi­grants who have been miss­ing when they left Güiria on board the pirogue Ana María des­tined for Ch­aguara­mas, are now point­ing fin­gers at a crim­i­nal en­ter­prise head­ed by the T&T gang­ster that has been in­volved in lur­ing women to make the dan­ger­ous trip across the Gulf of Paria. They tell sto­ries of women be­ing en­slaved, drugged and forced in­to pros­ti­tu­tion.

In Sep­tem­ber 2017, Mieres, was charged with con­spir­a­cy to com­mit mur­der Sel­wyn ‘Robo­cop’ Alex­is, in Oc­to­ber 2014. Alex­is, the leader of an En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas gang, was mur­dered in Ju­ly 2016.

Mieres, 44, of School Street, Las Cuevas Vil­lage, ap­peared be­fore Se­nior Mag­is­trate Nanette Forde-John, in the Port of Spain 8th Mag­is­trates’ Court, and was lat­er re­leased on $450,000 bail.

Mieres was ar­rest­ed af­ter po­lice ex­e­cut­ed a search war­rant at his home for dan­ger­ous drugs be­tween the hours of 11 pm Au­gust 30, 2017 and 8.15 pm on Au­gust 31, 2017.

Dur­ing the search po­lice al­leged­ly seized US$5,330, TT$1,100 in cash and sev­er­al pieces of cam­ou­flage cloth­ing.

Mieres had been ar­rest­ed dur­ing the 2011 State of Emer­gency and was lat­er charged with be­ing a gang leader. He was lat­er re­leased on bail.