It has been more than sixteen months since Brazilian, Euclid Da Silva was gunned down on Regent Street, Georgetown and the police investigation into the case appears to have gone cold.
While a source told the Sunday Stabroek that the investigation into Da Silva’s murder remains open, it is unclear whether investigators have any lead in the murder at the moment or were even able to establish the motive for Da Silva’s killing.
And to date, Da Silva killer/s remains on the loose.
During the early stage of the investigation, the police had said that a person of interest, who is well known to lawmen was wanted for questioning in relation to the crime.
The man subsequently turned himself into the police at the Brickdam Police Station in the company of his lawyer.
He is accused of threatening Da Silva’s son prior to the shooting. The person of interest and Da Silva’s son were involved in an altercation in front of a popular city nightspot some time before the murder.
Da Silva’s son received several threats from the man and had been warned to “be careful” by person/s who told him that the individual would kill him.
The threats were never reported to the police and it is also unclear whether any other individual/s were questioned as part of the probe.
The shooting was captured on surveillance footage but it is also unknown if investigators were able to gather any details about the killer/s.
Da Silva, 50, of Lot 23 Hadfield Street, Werk-en-Rust, Georgetown, was riddled with bullets on August 10th after two gunmen opened fire as he sat in a pick-up truck outside of Shamdas Kirpalani, on Regent Street, near Camp Street, in Georgetown.
In a surveillance video seen by this newspaper, the gunmen can be seen rushing out of their car before flanking Da Silva and his companion, who were seated in the now dead man’s vehicle, and then opening fire.
Da Silva’s companion, who has been identified as a fellow Brazilian national, was critically injured.
Back in 2010, Da Silva, who was listed as a Brazilian fugitive by Interpol, was arrested by local law enforcement here and handed over to authorities in the neighbouring country.
In July 2010, the man was held by local police for allegedly forging a Guyanese birth certificate on which he purported to show that he was born here.
The man operated a business in the city and at the time of his arrest a move was made in the courts to have his deportation blocked after his true identity was determined.
In 2012, he was arrested for illegal entry as well as obtaining a Guyanese passport on a forged birth certificate.
Da Silva, who also went by the names Euclides Erian Da Silva or Euclid Saigo, was said to have escaped from a maximum-security prison in Boa Vista in late July 2012 along with several other persons. He had been serving time in the prison across the border from Lethem for drug trafficking and money laundering.
Information reaching this newspaper is that Da Silva had managed to secure an order here barring his deportation to Brazil.
