Suspected oil-stealing ring linked to double murder at CHEC

Details of possible collusion involving employees linked to an alleged oil-stealing ring at a China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) property, located at a Ferry industrial complex off the Mandela Highway in St Andrew, are emerging in the aftermath of last Sunday’s murder of two security guards at the location.

CHEC’s lukewarm cooperation with local law enforcement on instances of criminality is also being flagged.

The information comes as the families of Brandon Small and Lincoln Royal grapple with their deaths, with at least one set of relatives accusing their employer, GYD Security Limited, of being callous in the response to the tragedy.

Small’s family in the Red Hills community of northern Clarendon remain in a daze after he was killed less than 24 hours after his mom Wendy Whittick assisted him with funds to go to work and after he made dinner for his ‘second mom’ Yanique Thompson-Jackson on Saturday.

For Whittick and her niece Christine Chang, the 22-year-old's pleasant disposition as well as his determination and dedication to a job he started at age 18 were among his most admirable traits.

“Sometimes Brandon nuh have it fi go a work. Saturday, when him a go a work, him text my phone and seh him a borrow $3,000,” Whittick said of one of her last interactions with the eldest of her four children, emphasising how intent ‘Pooh’, as Small was also called, was on fulfilling his duties.

She told The Sunday Gleaner: “From Pooh small, $500 carried him to high school and him save out of that $500 and threw a partner for $17,000 and took out his first passport. … Him tell himself seh him want a car and him nuh really want nobody buy a car give him; him want fi can meet himself part way. Just nuh want nutten free.”

Chang recounted her last moments with her cousin, a past student of Kellits High in Clarendon.

“Saturday when he was leaving, he was packing his bag and I went by his room and me see him with one cheese bread and a bun, and me seh, 'What you have that for?', and him seh, 'A mi lunch and mi breakfast fi Sunday',” she recalled.

“Dem tek me aunty eyeball. Dem tek the heart and soul of the family,” she cried.

Thompson-Jackson, Small’s neighbour-turned-second mom, recalled that the young man had many dreams as she lamented his brutal demise.

A memory that brings some peace, however, was how he responded to a situation while he was out to celebrate his birthday three months ago with her and his mom at Murray's Fish & Jerk Hut in Toll Gate.

“On our way back, the car broke down, but it was just fun. He was so positive about everything,” she shared of the September 15 troubles. “It was his birthday. You thought he would be a little bit down because all of this happened, but he was just everything; he was just positive. He was just nice.”

'SLEEPLESS NIGHTS'

Coping has been tough.

“We have sleepless nights, sleepless nights,” Whittick stressed, before being joined by Chang, who said that the younger children in the household have been left traumatised and unable to attend school.

The situation has not been helped by what the family has described as poor communication from Small’s employer, GYD Security, a firm incorporated in 2018 and has roughly 130 employees.

"[Despite] the dedication weh Brandon put into his work, it’s like they don’t care that he lost his life … . Mi understand life goes on, but what happen to wi? We leff a back. How we a go move on? Nobody call and seh likkle condolences or try fi render likkle help fi counselling. We just a go by,” said the heartbroken Chang.

The family has also questioned whether more could have been done to protect the security guards, especially after an alleged oil theft on December 4 – a week before the murders.

“The company knows stuff and didn’t protect my cousin; they didn’t protect him,” said Chang, who disclosed that Small reported to them that he was being offered bribes to turn a blind eye to illicit activities.

Dwayne McLeod, a manager at GYD Security, who was off the island when the murders occurred, said the company has protocols to deal with the deaths of workers. He said that he will be seeking to meet with Small's family this week.

He also told The Sunday Gleaner that there has been communication with Small’s father and the relatives of Lincoln Royal, the other guard killed in the incident.

“Brandon was very important to us. I saw a lot of potential in him and he has gotten promotion faster than a lot of people,” McLeod said, noting that last year, the senior security officer was sent to St Lucia for six months to help establish the company’s operations there.

Small was recently promoted from regular guard to an unarmed supervisor.

Royal's widow, Sharon Heslop-Royal, said her husband was a good man.

"He was a loving man. We have been married for 20 years, but we have been together for 40 years, so right now, it is like ... I can't manage without him," she told this newspaper last week as relatives and friends gathered at her Brown's Hall, St Catherine home to console her.

RACKET INVOLVING JAMAICAN WORKERS

The police investigation into Sunday’s murders includes an assessment of whether there is any connection with the attempted oil theft on Sunday, December 4 at the Ferry-based industrial complex, and which allegedly involved four Jamaican labourers hired by CHEC.

On the day in question, workers were at the plant late preparing asphalt for use on the May Pen to Williamsfield leg of Highway 2000, which is being developed under the Southern Coastal Highway Improvement Project. CHEC, an arm of a state-owned Chinese company, is the contractor on the project.

Security guards doing patrol around 11:30 p.m. allegedly saw four men pouring diesel oil from two drums. One was caught as they attempted to flee. The Duhaney Park police in St Andrew were contacted and the man taken into custody.

But within days, the four were reportedly seen back on the job.

McLeod said there are almost weekly instances of theft of equipment or oil. However, he told The Sunday Gleaner that he was not sure what happened in that instance since it was up to CHEC to press charges.

Deputy Superintendent Hemford Wade, crime officer for the St Andrew South police, confirmed that China Harbour did not provide a statement, which was necessary for the case to progress.

He explained that based on his experience, many Chinese business operators try to avoid the court system, an attitude that meant many cases do not get prosecuted.

China Harbour has declined to comment on all the developments, telling The Sunday Gleaner that investigations are ongoing.

Small and Royal were reportedly the guards who thwarted the oil theft.

GYD Security confirmed that Small was the one who detained the CHEC worker.

Five officers were on duty on the fateful night of December 11. Small, Royal and a third colleague were from the party that did duties when the four were caught stealing the previous Sunday.

Royal and a colleague were posted at the main entrance to the three- to four-acre property, Small was in the middle, and their other two colleagues were stationed at the residential section, which was separated by a wall and another security checkpoint.

GYD Security said there was no indication of an immediate threat to the guards and so no reassignment was deemed necessary.

“It’s a norm when we catch employees of China Harbour when we arrest them, get them to the station, within a week or two they are back at work,” an official said, noting that the guards have made multiple arrests in the past with no discernible acts of reprisal.

WHAT HAPPENED ON SUNDAY NIGHT

Exactly how last Sunday’s attack unfolded some time after 10:30 p.m. remains uncertain, but reports of the involvement of China Habour workers are being pursued.

An employee, who was allegedly inside one of the buildings, reported to the guards at the main gate that he wanted to be let out to speak to relatives he claimed visited him in a car outside.

That man was let out through the gate – an eight-foot, solid-metal, electronically operated, sliding structure.

About 15 minutes later, someone reportedly knocked on the gate.

One of the guards asked who was it and the person reportedly replied that they were an employee who wanted to speak with a CHEC supervisor.

The guard told the person that the official being sought does not work in the night and was not on the compound.

While responding, the guard reportedly tried reaching Small by phone, but did not get him. Small was supervising that shift.

While walking towards Small’s post, the guard who interacted with the stranger at the gate reportedly saw a man with a gun running from the back of the premises that borders the New Haven community. The man is believed to have jumped the ten-foot wall topped with barbed wire.

The guard reportedly aborted his trip and ran towards another border wall, which he scaled to get away.

It is believed that the man seen with the gun was the one who opened the gate to allow a grey motor car to enter the property.

Royal, the other officer who was at the front post, was tied up and beaten before he was shot dead. He was armed.

Investigators believe the attackers pressured him for details on the location of the other security officers.

Small was then attacked and shot multiple times.

The guard who ran out of fear for his life was found later physically unhurt. The other two guards on duty reportedly said they hid.

An armed supervisor is usually on each shift, GYD Security said. It remains unclear why the designated supervisor did not work that shift.

After the shooting and the departure of the police, the CHEC employee, who had reportedly left to see purported relatives, returned to the property to sleep.

“It’s really unusual to hear that two persons were killed, for somebody to go and sleep at the same location. Where he slept would be in the vicinity where Small was killed,” an official said, noting that collusion involving CHEC employees was being probed.

There has been no arrest so far. Neither has a suspect or person of interest been identified, according to DSP Wade, who is working with the Major Investigations Division, the unit leading the probe.

Wade said sleuths are looking “strongly” into the theory that pilfering is taking place at the location and “maybe the security [guards] were killed because of their efforts to thwart persons from stealing oil and other things”.

He said that if CHEC had given a statement in the December 4 case, “it may have prevented something else from happening”.

“The experience has shown us that CHEC, sometimes they are rather slow in providing certain statements in respect to investigations. I don’t know if it’s a culture or not. They don’t normally quickly come on board … . I pick up that they have issues with the court. They don’t like the court issues out here,” said the cop.

Almost 48 hours after the murders, four men in a car believed to be the same one from the Ferry Industrial Complex incident attacked the CHEC facility in Newport West, St Andrew. One of the attackers was killed. He remains unidentified.

In November, four men also reportedly attacked a driver of a CHEC truck who was on his way to a quarry in Clarendon. The employee was tied up and beaten.

CHEC has reportedly lost at least three trucks to theft.

jovan.johnson@gleanerjm.com