Kevin “Bones” Metura was shot dead on February 7, 2016. (Photo courtesy 721 News)
PHILIPSBURG--Prosecutors are seeking a life sentence for an alleged high-ranking member of criminal organisation No Limit Soldiers (NLS), who is accused of orchestrating two murders and two attempted killings in 2016 and 2017.
C.S.H. (53) is suspected to have arranged the fatal shootings of Kevin “Bones” Metura on February 7, 2016, and A.R.L. “Nino” Browne-Thewet on March 14, 2017, as well as the failed assassination attempts on Kimoy Gumbs on April 8, 2016, and Marini “Addict” Nunes on November 5, 2016.
Prosecutors believe NLS leader Shurandy “Tyson” Quant and NLS second-in-command Urwin “Nuto” Wawoe put a US $500,000 hit on these four men. They allegedly deemed the four responsible for the murder of Wawoe’s girlfriend, Latoya “Nuta” Flanders, who was gunned down in front of her house in French Quarter on November 5, 2015.
The chain of violence seemingly began on September 11, 2014, when Wawoe survived an attempt on his life while serving a multi-year sentence at the Pointe Blanche prison for cocaine, marijuana and firearm possession.
Carlos Richardson, a convicted hitman for the Bling Bling Crew, another criminal organisation, had failed to shoot Wawoe that day with a gun that had been smuggled into the prison.
Wawoe was later transferred to a detention facility in the Netherlands for his safety. Prosecutors say his girlfriend was murdered, “in all likelihood”, because his enemies could not get him in Dutch jail.
The case against H. is based primarily on recovered data from encrypted messaging system PGP Safe, whose servers were confiscated and deciphered by Dutch authorities in unrelated investigations in 2016 and 2017.
Prosecutors say H. was linked to a PGP account that sent messages to Quant. The two allegedly spoke about getting H.’s “team” from St. Croix to travel by boat to St. Maarten to commit the killings. They also talked about the price, worked out the final “death list” and, after the shootings, about how payment should be arranged.
H. stood trial last week in tightly secured courtroom in Curaçao, with a live stream shown in the courthouse in Philipsburg.
There were a total of six counts on his indictment. In addition to the four contract killings, H. was also charged with membership in a criminal organisation and arranging the attempted extortion of a French side businessman in April 2016.
H. denied being involved in any crime, saying he only pretended to go along with Quant’s request because he “did not want to tell him no”. He claimed that these shootings were committed by locals and not people from St. Croix, where he had lived for more than two decades before moving to St. Maarten.
The judge will render a verdict on March 13, 2025.
The hits
Kevin Metura had been riding his motorbike in French Cul-de-Sac around 9:40pm on February 7, 2016, when a car overtook him and someone shot through the window.
Metura fell from the bike and manages to pull out an automatic .45-calibre pistol, but he fires in the wrong direction. The car turned around and the driver shot again at Metura, who was now lying on the ground.
Metura was later taken to the hospital with five gunshot wounds. He died the next day.
Kimoy Gumbs was ambushed by two gunmen near his home in French Quarter around 8:50pm on April 8, 2016, which also happened to be his birthday. He was shot in the abdomen and had to be transported the next day to Guadeloupe for medical treatment. He survived the attack.
Marini Nunes was reportedly attacked by two gunmen wearing fake police uniforms at his Back Street home on the night of November 5, 2016, or exactly one year after the murder of Wawoe’s girlfriend. Nunes survived, despite being shot in the chest and both legs.
Nino Browne-Thewet was shot dead at his car wash in Sucker Garden on the night of March 14, 2017. An employee was also shot in the back but survived. The business was reportedly attacked by two masked gunmen.
Investigations by the Gendarmerie and the St. Maarten Police Force KPSM have never revealed the shooters in any of these crimes.
According to the prosecution, there were rumours that convicted killer Kathron “Kuchi” Fortune was behind Gumbs’ attempted murder, and that he and convicted murderer Hashantley Martina had tried to kill Nunes, but this has not led to formal charges.
Fortune is currently serving a life sentence in the Netherlands for killing two men in a hotel room in December 2016. He was a fugitive at the time, after having escaped from prison guards during a doctor’s visit in February 2016.
Martina is currently serving a 25-year sentence for the gangland-style murder of Francis Brunache in January 2017.
Deeply involved
Describing H. as a “murder broker”, prosecutors argued that he was deeply involved in plotting the contract killings, based on the recovered PGP messages.
On the day of Wawoe’s girlfriend’s murder, leader Quant asks H. who he thinks is behind the woman’s slaying.
H. said it was probably the “French guy” who is “at war with Nuto and the town people”.
H. added that Gumbs, who he also called by name, had sent hitmen from St. Kitts to do the deed.
According to the messages, Quant then asks how they can make Gumbs pay, to which H. says: “I can get him but let me think how and the right persons, because he has a lot of killers around him.”
Quant says he wants Metura and Gumbs to be killed, as well as a third man B.
Later, after Quant confirms that he will “pay for everything”, H. says: “I have a team from STX [an abbreviation for St. Croix – Ed.] to do it. Crazy animals.”
H. asks for some days to figure out the cost, and Quant says, “Respect. On a silence, we do this.”
H. then says: “You will see. I done talk with my people [and] they will come on boat from St. Croix.”
Five days later, H. and Quant agree on the half-million-dollar price. The hit list at this point was Metura, Gumbs, Nino Browne-Thewet and B.
B. comes off the hit list on November 13, 2015, according to recovered messages from now-convicted NLS member Robere Lucas to Quant.
Lucas had visited Wawoe in prison that day, and the NLS second-in-command told him to have B. removed, prosecutors said.
Nunes is first mentioned on the hit list in a tapped conversation between Wawoe and two associates in March 2016. According to the prosecution, Wawoe expresses a desire for revenge, saying the “town twins” must be dealt with harshly and without mercy.
Prosecutors say Wawoe also decided the days on which people should be killed. One of the days was November 5, or the same date when Nunes, who has a twin brother, was attacked by two gunmen.
PGP messages on April 10, 2016, appear to show H. and now-convicted NLS member Stephanie Phillips talking about the recent attack on Gumbs. They discussed that “K” is “half-dead” in Guadeloupe.
They also seem happy that “street talk” is pointing to murderer Fortune and that this will deflect suspicion away from them, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said H. also told Quant that “the flag is torn in half” and proposes to pay 50% to the “goons” in addition to 25 pounds of marijuana. H. also reports that “Addict” has gone into hiding.
Payment did not seem to go smoothly because H. tells Phillips: “You know how my dogs are when they eat! They want [their] gift on time!”
“Then there is a communication between the defendant and Quant about how they are satisfied with the work of the ‘goons’ and that it is wise to wait a little longer with the murder of Nunes,” prosecutors told the court last week.
On April 13, 2016, H. tells Quant: “Listen fada, the people on my back! And it is causing to much texting to me.”
It is “abundantly clear” that, “from beginning to end”, the defendant is deeply involved in the organisation of the murders, prosecutors said. “He made the plans in advance and arranged the ‘goons’ and, afterwards, had explicit involvement with the payment.”
Possibly others
Given the 16-month gap between the hit being put out on Nino Browne-Thewet and his actual murder, prosecutors told the court that they could not rule out the possibility that it was not a targetted assassination by NLS and that other people had committed this crime.
There is also no PGP messages linking the group to the killing in the preceding months. However, it still can be proven that H. and other NLS members were busy plotting the murder, prosecutors said.
In a message on November 10, 2015, Quant said: “I want Kimoy and Kevin dead and after we look for Nino. But that one we let him think we are with him, cause Nino we got him easy.”
H. then says it would give him “great pleasure” to kill Nino and wished he could do it himself, prosecutors said.
“Nino was apparently easy prey... It [could] explain why he was the last to go,” prosecutors said. “Perhaps because Nino Browne was connected to St. Maarten, would not leave, he had a car wash and lived on the Dutch side.”
Carpet
Prosecutors also considered it proven that H. helped arranged the extortion of a French side businessman, based on the recovered PGP messages.
On April 14, 2016, Quant informs H. that a “French friend” will contact him about a job in St. Maarten.
It turned out that NLS had been asked to send people to the businessman and threaten him to pay what he owed to the criminal organisation of another PGP user called 39x.
Prosecutors say the PGP user had given the businessman a valuable carpet and 450,000 euros for safekeeping and had been doubting the man’s story that these goods had been taken by thieves during a break-in at his home.
According to the prosecution, H. asked the “French friend”, an intermediary for 39x, if they wanted the businessman to be “taken care of”.
“If they don’t want to pay back what they owe, we must finish them. But it must look as a robbery,” the man told H.
Prosecutors say the job was then handed off to NLS member Phillips, who messaged Quant on April 24, 2016, and reported that her boys had “roll on him”.
“From the last reports that follow, it can be deduced that the people from France are satisfied with Phillips. She has received money for her services, with which the executors of the extortion have been paid,” prosecutors told the court.
In a police interview, the businessman confirmed that four or five men had come to his establishment, saying he believed the Mocro Mafia, a notorious Dutch-Moroccan criminal organisation, was behind the visit.
Prosecutors told the court that the businessman has familial links to someone who had been in a relationship with Mocro Mafia crime boss Ridouan Taghi (46).
Until his late 2019 arrest in Dubai, Taghi was the most wanted criminal in the Netherlands. He given a life sentence earlier this year at the end of the so-called Marengo trial, which looked into several targetted assassinations.
Three people connected to the trial’s key witness were killed, including a lawyer and a prominent crime journalist.
Who is NLS?
H. is one of a number of suspects in the large-scale “Themis” investigation into NLS, which dealt in arms and drug trafficking, money-laundering and murder-for-hire.
Quant was arrested in Dubai in November 2020, but this newspaper understands that he has been released by the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Dutch kingdom does not have an extradition treaty with the Persian Gulf country.
Wawoe is expected to go to trial in June 2025 on a total of 14 charges, including incitement to murder and attempted murder, drug trafficking and money-laundering.
In August 2022, a Curaçao court sentenced Lucas to 14 years in prison and Phillips to six years as part of the Themis investigation.
With roots in the Koraal Specht district of Curaçao, NLS has also operated in the Netherlands, Great Britain and Dutch St. Maarten/French St. Martin. It has also been linked to high-profile assassinations, such as the 2013 murder of Curaçao Member of Parliament (MP) Helmin Wiels, who was killed on the orders of former Curaçao Finance Minister George Jamaloodin.
A. “Nino” Browne-Thewet was killed on March 14, 2017. (Photo courtesy 721 News)