Years before he was gunned down in front of Palm Court on Main Street, Georgetown, at least one attempt was made on the life of gold dealer, Ricardo Fagundes.
His killing remains unsolved and it is unknown whether the attempts to kill Fagundes were linked to his eventual murder in March, 2021.
Sources with knowledge of the case told this newspaper that Fagundes escaped death back in 2007 when a vehicle belonging to him came under fire on Thomas Road, Georgetown.
At the time, Fagundes was not in the vehicle. However, the attack claimed the life of his friend, Navin Serrao. More than a decade has passed and Serrao’s murder remains unsolved.
Stabroek News had reported that on night of June 7, 2007, Serrao was driving his friend’s Toyota 212 car. He had just picked up the friend’s mother from her home in Kitty and was driving west along Thomas Road.
An unidentified car drove alongside him and gunmen started shooting at Serrao. He died from several gunshot wounds to his head, neck, hands, arms and chest before reaching the Georgetown Hospital.
Mere days after the killing, then acting Police Commissioner Henry Greene had commented that he believed it might be linked to some drug deal. Greene’s comments had left Serrao’s relatives furious and they had insisted that the police should do thorough investigations before making such pronouncements.
Serrao’s sister, Rihana Moore had said that she did not know her brother to be involved in any illegal activities prior to his death. It was speculated that Serrao was a victim of mistaken identity.
Before this, Fagundes’ vehicle was riddled with bullets on the East Coast of Demerara (ECD). At the time, the sister of a prominent convicted drug trafficker was in the vehicle. Both she and Fagundes escaped unhurt.
In both instances, there was speculation that Fagundes was the target.
And just like the previous apparent attempts to kill him, Fagundes’ murder remains unsolved to date.
Fagundes was riddled with bullets by two men just after exiting Palm Court on the evening of Sunday, March 21, last year.
At the time of the attack, he was approaching a parked vehicle owned by convicted drug trafficker Roger Khan. An autopsy later confirmed that Fagundes was shot about 20 times about his body.
The police recovered 30 spent shells at the scene. Sixteen were from an AK-47 rifle, while the other fourteen were from a 9mm weapon. The high-powered weaponry signalled an operation of a different magnitude.
Fagundes was a close friend of Khan, who later said that he was the intended target of the attack.
In August of this year, following his arrest in connection with a drug bust, Detective Sergeant, Dion Bascom went public to air his frustrations over what he described as mistreatment that he and other ranks have faced while serving the Guyana Police Force.
During a live Facebook video, which was subsequently removed, Bascom made allegations regarding the stalled Fagundes murder probe, saying he believed his life was under threat and that there was a cover-up by police of the slaying.
He also claimed that a senior policeman was paid $30 million to bury the Fagundes case and implicated others as being linked to the crime, prompting the threat of lawsuits.
Bascom had claimed that he was one of the officers who arrived at the scene following the shooting of Fagundes. According to Bascom, he and other officers were able to track the phone used by the prime suspect and the calls he made before and after the shooting.
He had also further alleged that he played a key role in pursuing one of the suspects in the murder of Fagundes.
The GPF had later dismissed Bascom’s claims as “malicious and untrue”. Bascom is currently before the court on a number of cybercrime charges over his video statements.
Following the intervention of President Irfaan Ali, a team from the Regional Security System (RSS) was assigned to review the allegations made by Bascom.
The RSS later found that there was no evidence of corrupt practices or an attempt to cover up the investigation into Fagundes’ murder.
