SOME gold miners operating along Guyana’s western border who have been affected by Venezuela’s ‘El Sindicatos’ gang are suspicious that locals might be providing the criminal group with vital information on local targets.
This has been the assertion as assailants continue to pounce on mining operations along Guyana’s border with Venezuela.

“I feel somebody guiding these men as to where to go and who to hit,” a Georgetown resident who recently returned from the Cuyuni/Mazaruni region told Guyana Chronicle.
The man, who is a technician, said he was in Region Seven’s Ekereku Backdam conducting work on behalf of his company when he came across some miners who had emerged from “Ekereku bottom” to call their families in the city to inform them that they had been robbed by the ‘El Sindicatos’.

The technician said the robbery had occurred three weeks ago; one week before Dominican Republic national Pedro Pablo Rosario was shot dead during a robbery by armed bandits at Black Water Backdam, Cuyuni River.
The man said since the incident, the miners have reported the matter to the police but was reportedly told that the incident occurred on an international border.
The technician said he too related the matter to a relative–a senior member of the army who promised to look into the incident.

“These people like they does come over and camp and then go back, at least that is what the men said,” the technician reported.
He told this newspaper that the miners are convinced that Guyanese are involved with the criminal group and are helping them to carry out the robberies or providing them with information on where and who to attack.

The man said one miner told him that his camp was not easily accessible and anyone going to the camp must know its location to get in and out.
The technician said that even though the bandits were speaking Spanish, the miners remain firm that there is some Guyanese involvement.
They do not believe that the Venezuelans know Guyana’s backdam that well to easily locate mining camps.

“These men are not behaving nice,” the technician said, adding that “They are not coming one and two, is a lot of them and they are heavily armed.”
Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan only weeks ago visited some border communities and promised to dispatch more police ranks to the area to stave off the ‘El Sindicatos’.

Regional Chairman Brentnol Ashley had said the reports involving the criminal gang were coming from areas deep within the mining area, closer to the border.
Sporadic attacks have been taking place in which persons were hurt or even killed, the chairman said.