Blood & Plunder

From the island-dotted, almost landlocked Gulf of Paria, separating Trinidad from the coast of northeastern Venezuela, Pirate Edward Teach, the infamous Blackbeard, once sallied forth to ravage American ports as far north as Virginia. In the 232 years since Blackbeard's death, the gulf has been a highway for smuggling between Trinidad and the South American mainland. But for a time this month smugglers and even honest fishermen feared to venture to sea. Word had run along the waterfront that once again pirates were operating in the Gulf of Paria.

Rope & Iron. Suspicion was first aroused when two fishermen left Port-of-Spain in an outboard-powered pirogue on a calm day and never came back. Four days later two other fishermen went out in their boat and also failed to return. The last to report their boat was a fisherman who said he saw them hove to about 10 at night with a larger craft alongside. Then a man's body, bound and strapped to a 98-lb. chunk of iron, washed ashore in the Trinidad Yacht Club's bay. The victim was identified as Philbert Peyson, member of an organized gang of burglars, holdup men--and possibly pirates. There was reason to believe that he was under suspicion by his fellow gangsters as an informer.

The leader of the gang to which Peyson belonged, the rumor went, was burly, 180-lb. Boysie Singh, alias Julie Mama. Like Blackbeard, who braided ribbons into his beard and went into action with smoldering fuses behind his ears, Singh knows the value of a proper appearance. During the war, when he owned a string of nightclubs, he wore a ten-gallon hat, a sharply draped zoot suit, and numerous rings. More recently he has assumed the role of owner of a modest fishing fleet and prefers a fisherman's sweater and khaki trousers.

Silk & Tweed. In spite of his protective coloration, Trinidad police began to take a lively interest in Fisherman Singh. An indignant Venezuelan had come to town to report that three of his relatives had shipped out of Port-of-Spain last month bound for Venezuela with a $3,000 cargo of cloth and had never been seen again. The police raided the home of Singh's wife and son, found some silk and tweeds of the same pattern as those bought by the missing Venezuelans. They also found the outboard motor and fishing equipment of one of the first boats to disappear.

Last week the owner of one of the missing boats had further cause to suspect the Singhs. While he and a party of fishermen were returning from north-coast Maracas Bay with their catch, he reported, a group of men led by Boysie Singh's 20-year-old son Anthony "Sonny" Singh tried to hold up his truck. The approach of another truck drove them off.

This week Sonny was free on bail on a charge of attempted robbery; father Singh and three associates were in jail, charged with Philbert Peyson's murder. With sighs of relief, fishermen and smugglers put back to sea in the Gulf of Paria.

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