Be­tween 2020 and Au­gust this year, 55 Venezue­lan na­tion­als were mur­dered in Trinidad, ten of them women.

Sev­en of these killings have been clas­si­fied as drug-re­lat­ed.

Al­most three-quar­ters of the mur­ders oc­curred be­tween 2022 and Au­gust 2025, while 14 of the Venezue­lans killed were be­tween the ages of 20 and 24.

These find­ings came from sta­tis­tics com­piled by the Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis (CA­PA) branch of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), in re­sponse to ques­tions from the Sun­day Guardian about the num­ber of Venezue­lans mur­dered since 2019, the ages of the vic­tims, and how many of the mur­ders were drug-re­lat­ed. CA­PA, how­ev­er, pro­vid­ed fig­ures on­ly for the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary 2020 to Au­gust 26, 2025.

An ex­am­i­na­tion of the da­ta showed that 55 Venezue­lans were mur­dered over the past 68 months. Many of the vic­tims met vi­o­lent and grue­some ends—hog-tied and beat­en, gunned down, stran­gled, stabbed, or re­peat­ed­ly chopped.

Of the 55 homi­cides re­port­ed, 45 of the vic­tims were male, rep­re­sent­ing 82 per cent, while ten vic­tims—18 per cent—were fe­male.

Among the men killed was An­der­son Guer­ra, 26, who was found two weeks ago in Wa­ter­loo with gun­shot wounds to his chest and face. His hands were bound be­hind his back with straps.

In 2023, rel­a­tives of 20-year-old Jassiel Guilarte called for jus­tice in his killing. Guilarte’s body, bear­ing mul­ti­ple stab wounds, was found on the M2 Ring Road, La Ro­maine. The last time he was seen alive was when he left his Church Street, San Fer­nan­do, home to sell an iPhone to pay off a debt.

An­nu­al trends

The sta­tis­tics showed that in 2020, 2022, 2023, and 2024, po­lice record­ed 11 mur­ders each year, for a to­tal of 44 killings.

In 2021, there were five homi­cides.

For 2025 (up to Au­gust 26), six Venezue­lans have al­ready been mur­dered.

The da­ta al­so re­vealed that ten Venezue­lan women were killed be­tween 2020 and 2025.

Four were mur­dered in 2020, the high­est fig­ure for women in a sin­gle year.

Be­tween 2022 and 2024, an­oth­er four women were killed.

Two women have been mur­dered so far in 2025.

No women were mur­dered in 2021.

Among the women killed was 25-year-old moth­er of two, Lil­ianys Ce­leste Ve­r­az Gon­za­lez, who came to T&T in search of em­ploy­ment and a bet­ter life for her chil­dren. Gon­za­lez went miss­ing for ten days in No­vem­ber 2023. Her mu­ti­lat­ed body was lat­er found on the road­side at Her­mitage Ex­ten­sion, near Debe.

The 2020 mur­der of Joan­na Di­az Sanchez, 33, al­so shocked the coun­try. Re­port­ed miss­ing for a week, she was dis­cov­ered in a cesspit at a man’s house on San­ta Clara Road, Preysal. Po­lice be­lieved she had been stran­gled be­fore her body was stuffed in­to the cesspit, but her au­top­sy was in­con­clu­sive due to de­com­po­si­tion.

Ages of vic­tims

An­oth­er CA­PA chart gave a break­down of the ages of the Venezue­lans killed. The da­ta grouped vic­tims in­to three cat­e­gories: un­der 15, 15–60+, and un­known.

Of the six Venezue­lans mur­dered this year, the ages of three were not known to po­lice. Over­all, the ages of eight of the 55 vic­tims re­main un­record­ed.

Among those iden­ti­fied:

14 vic­tims were aged 20–24

11 were 25–29

9 were 30–34

6 were 35–39

1 was over 60

A deep­er look at the fig­ures showed that 71 per cent of the mur­ders—39 in to­tal—oc­curred be­tween 2022 and Au­gust 26, 2025. Be­tween 2023 and Au­gust 2025, po­lice record­ed 28 homi­cides, rep­re­sent­ing 51 per cent of the to­tal.

The CA­PA da­ta fur­ther re­vealed that 13 per cent of the killings—sev­en mur­ders in all—were gang-re­lat­ed.

Six oc­curred in 2020 and one in 2022.

Of those vic­tims:

3 were aged 35–39

2 were aged 20–22

1 was 15–19

1 was 30–34

The Sun­day Guardian sent ques­tions to Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro on Wednes­day via What­sApp, but he did not re­spond.

BOX: Venezue­lans and crime

In 2020, po­lice charged Venezue­lan na­tion­als with:

4 mur­ders

33 firearm/am­mu­ni­tion of­fences

8 wound­ing/shoot­ing of­fences

13 nar­cotics of­fences

2 kid­nap­pings

In 2021, charges in­clud­ed:

26 firearm/am­mu­ni­tion of­fences

1 wound­ing/shoot­ing of­fence

6 nar­cotics cas­es

1 kid­nap­ping

These fig­ures were pro­vid­ed in 2022 by then act­ing com­mis­sion­er of po­lice, Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob.

A 2022 Unit­ed Na­tions re­port, Caribbean Gangs: Drugs, Firearms and Gang Net­work in Ja­maica, St Lu­cia, Guyana and T&T, stat­ed that Venezue­lan crim­i­nal gangs are par­tic­i­pat­ing in or­gan­ised crime in T&T, in­clud­ing ex­tor­tion, hu­man traf­fick­ing, and smug­gling of guns and drugs.

BOX: Mi­grant Reg­is­tra­tion and Pol­i­cy

In 2019, the then Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment gov­ern­ment reg­is­tered 16,523 Venezue­lans to live and work in T&T. The ini­tia­tive sought to ad­dress the in­flux of mi­grants amid Venezuela’s deep­en­ing eco­nom­ic and so­cial cri­sis.

How­ev­er, over the years, many more un­doc­u­ment­ed Venezue­lans en­tered the coun­try il­le­gal­ly through porous bor­ders. Some brought weapons and in­flu­enced lo­cal gang ac­tiv­i­ty.

In No­vem­ber last year, then Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar vowed that if her par­ty re­turned to gov­ern­ment, she would de­port Venezue­lan mi­grants who com­mit­ted crimes “by any means nec­es­sary.” Her com­ments fol­lowed the bru­tal mur­der of pen­sion­er Win­ston Thomas, who was beat­en, robbed, kid­napped, and killed by Span­ish-speak­ing men.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said cit­i­zens had been gen­er­ous in ac­cept­ing Venezue­lan mi­grants but warned: “Every day for the last year, there were re­ports of vi­o­lent crimes be­ing com­mit­ted by il­le­gal Venezue­lan mi­grants against our cit­i­zens.”

How­ev­er, four months af­ter be­ing elect­ed in­to of­fice, she soft­ened her po­si­tion, as­sur­ing that her Gov­ern­ment would not en­gage in mass de­por­ta­tions but was work­ing on a struc­tured mi­grant pol­i­cy.

Last No­vem­ber, the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty ex­tend­ed the Work Per­mit Ex­emp­tion for Venezue­lan na­tion­als un­til De­cem­ber 31, 2025.

BOX: Crim­i­nol­o­gist’s View

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dau­rius Figueira said if the UNC is se­ri­ous about re­duc­ing crime, it must “round up” all il­le­gal Venezue­lans and de­port them.

“Ex­act­ly what Trump is do­ing, we need to be do­ing. Put them on a boat and send them back home. We have im­mi­gra­tion laws to deal with this is­sue,” Figueira said.

He ar­gued that in the past six years, many Trinida­di­ans have suf­fered at the hands of Venezue­lan mi­grants, whom he de­scribed as mas­ter­minds be­hind ex­tor­tion, home in­va­sions, vi­o­lent rob­beries, drug smug­gling, traf­fick­ing, and mur­ders.

“They pose a grave threat to our se­cu­ri­ty. You have to purge them,” he said, adding that de­por­ta­tion would re­duce crime in Cen­tral and South Trinidad.

Au­thor­i­ties warn Venezue­lans:

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der ex­pressed con­cern over crimes com­mit­ted by Venezue­lans in T&T, de­scrib­ing the trend as “rear­ing its ug­ly head a lit­tle too of­ten.”

Speak­ing at his Tu­na­puna Con­stituen­cy Of­fice yes­ter­day, Alexan­der is­sued a blunt warn­ing to il­le­gal Venezue­lans: “If you come here with in­ten­tions to dis­rupt, rob per­sons, or es­tab­lish your­self as a crime boss, I sug­gest you pack your bags, jump on a pirogue if you can, and head back down the road.”

Hu­man rights ac­tivist Sofia Figueroa echoed the mes­sage, say­ing she has no sym­pa­thy for Venezue­lans who break the law.

“I do un­der­stand that our prison sys­tem is over­crowd­ed. I will say you want to come to Trinidad to do wrong, take your years in jail. End of sto­ry,” she said.

Figueroa ac­knowl­edged that many Venezue­lans work hon­est­ly in T&T, but warned that some ar­rive with ma­li­cious in­tent, form­ing al­liances with lo­cal gangs to com­mit crimes.

“They come across to Trinidad to com­mit crimes like they are ac­cus­tomed to do­ing in Venezuela. How­ev­er, if you are com­ing to com­mit a ma­jor crime, you have to have links with the gangs in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” she added.

Venezue­lans Mur­dered in T&T

2025

Aug: An­der­son Wil­frero Guer­ra

Apr: Onan Jose To­var Har­reaza; Dion­nys Gre­go­rio Gon­za­les

Mar: Fayge Acos­ta; Samuel Mar­cano Richard Alex­is; Irvin Joaquin May­o­ra

2024

Dec: Hec­tor Je­sus Marin Valder­rey; Alvin Acos­ta

Sept: Diego Gre­gre­gio Alves Macha­do

Aug: Ri­car­do Jose Nichol­son Boa­da; San­ti­a­go Cle­viel

Apr: An­to­nio Jose Za­bala

Feb: Is­abel­la Vir­ginia Loza­do Morales

2023

Nov: Lil­ianys Ce­leste Ve­r­az Gon­za­lez

Sept: Roger Lopez

Jul: Jassiel Guilarte

Feb: Daniel Gon­za­les

2022

Oct: Ri­vas Ramos Je­re­my de Je­sus

Sept: Vic­tor Jose Men­doza

Jul: May­er­lin Car­reno

May: Joel Fer­nan­dez

2020

Dec: Luis San­ti­a­go Figuera; Cel­so An­drade Ce­de­no; Flor Leal Gar­cia

Sept: Joan­na Di­az Sanchez

May: Guimar Jose Rausseo Mar­cano; Jose Ser­ra­no