Murdered businessman’s son held under PDO again

KE­JAN HAYNES

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ke­[email protected]

The son of mur­dered busi­ness­man Dan­ny Guer­ra is among six­teen peo­ple de­tained un­der pre­ven­ta­tive de­ten­tion or­ders. Garvin Aaron Guer­ra, al­so called Gavin Aaron Guer­ra, is de­scribed as be­ing linked to the Sixx Gang and is be­lieved to have been in­volved in plan­ning re­tal­ia­to­ry shoot­ings in Va­len­cia, San­gre Grande and sur­round­ing ar­eas. It is the sec­ond time he has been held un­der a PDO. Po­lice sources said he was held in To­ba­go.

Guer­ra, 50, who was al­so the own­er of DG Homes, was shot dead on March 13 this year. His rel­a­tives, in­clud­ing his el­dest son, age 28, were un­able to at­tend his fu­ner­al af­ter re­ceiv­ing death threats. Last year, the busi­ness­man and his son were de­tained un­der PDOs for gang ac­tiv­i­ty and for an al­leged plot to kill a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter, Wayne Sturge.

The lat­est PDOs were signed by Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der be­tween March 18 and April 15, to tar­get in­di­vid­u­als linked to sev­er­al gangs, in­clud­ing the 6 Gang, 7 Gang, Ras­ta City/Sev­en, 9 Gang, and crim­i­nal groups op­er­at­ing in San­gre Grande and south­ern dis­tricts.

A sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of the de­tainees are linked to gangs op­er­at­ing in East Port-of-Spain, par­tic­u­lar­ly the on­go­ing con­flict be­tween the 6 Gang and 7 Gang.

Among those held is Dwight Tyrese Yorke, al­so known by sev­er­al alias­es, in­clud­ing “Baller”. Yorke was re­cent­ly ar­rest­ed for the 2024 at­tack on Min­is­ter Alexan­der’s daugh­ter. The man al­leged­ly grabbed the woman’s gold chain while she was in a taxi along Char­lotte Street, Port-of-Spain, on De­cem­ber 24, 2024. He is al­leged to have punched the min­is­ter’s daugh­ter in the face, caus­ing her jaw to swell af­ter she yanked the gold chain back from him. Yorke was iden­ti­fied as an en­forcer for the Sev­en Gang, with in­tel­li­gence in­di­cat­ing in­volve­ment in armed rob­beries and re­tal­ia­to­ry shoot­ings.

Oth­ers held in­clude De­shawn Man­son, al­so known as “Deedee”, who in­ves­ti­ga­tors iden­ti­fied as a mem­ber of the 9 Gang, an or­gan­ised crime group in­volved in mur­ders, armed rob­beries, nar­cotics traf­fick­ing and firearm dis­tri­b­u­tion across Laven­tille and Port-of-Spain. Au­thor­i­ties be­lieve the gang has ac­cess to high-pow­ered weapons and is en­gaged in on­go­ing vi­o­lent con­flict with ri­vals, with plans for re­tal­ia­to­ry shoot­ings in pub­lic spaces.

Kevon Samuel and Akhem Cabarr were iden­ti­fied as mem­bers of the 6 Gang, which op­er­ates across Bev­er­ly Hills, East Dry Riv­er, Clifton Tow­ers and sur­round­ing ar­eas. Au­thor­i­ties say the gang has been car­ry­ing out ex­tor­tion, drug traf­fick­ing, armed rob­beries and firearm dis­tri­b­u­tion, and has been plan­ning reprisals fol­low­ing the killing of a mem­ber known as “Dap­pa Six” on Feb­ru­ary 1.

In San­gre Grande, sev­er­al de­tainees were linked to or­gan­ised crim­i­nal groups op­er­at­ing with­in that dis­trict.

Akiel Stephens, al­so known as “Beans”, and Kel­lon Stephens were iden­ti­fied as ac­tive par­tic­i­pants in a group in­volved in il­le­gal firearms pos­ses­sion and the use of co­er­cion against res­i­dents and po­ten­tial wit­ness­es.

In south Trinidad, de­tainees in­clude Travis John­son of South Oropouche, Jonathan Burke of La Ro­maine Danyel Dray­ton of La Brea, and Akiel Joseph, al­so known as “Bou­da”, al­so of La Brea.

Luis Al­ber­to Caf­fo Salazar, al­so known as “Gor­do”, and An­der­son Jose Vil­lal­ba, al­so called “An­der­son Jose”, are be­lieved to be in­volved in transna­tion­al weapons traf­fick­ing, sup­ply­ing il­le­gal firearms to lo­cal gangs.