On Tuesday night, law enforcement officers looking into the disappearance of two Surinamese men who entered Guyana more than a month ago faced a chaotic scene when villagers set fires to block access to the East Coast Demerara home of Mark “Demon” Cromwell, a former Guyanese police officer already sanctioned by the United States for alleged drug trafficking. A lorry parked along Vigilance Public Road was also set ablaze during the unrest, according to police sources familiar with the incident.
Investigators had secured a legally issued search warrant for Cromwell’s property, deeming it a key location of interest in the probe into the whereabouts of 28-year-old Siegello Lorenzo Van Dalen and 29-year-old Derryl Danillo Bont. But when officers arrived to execute the warrant, local residents physically blocked entry and prevented the search from going forward, an anonymous police official confirmed to Demerara Waves Online News.
The interest in Cromwell’s property stems from witness accounts that place the two missing Surinamese men entering a vehicle registered to Cromwell’s wife shortly after they crossed into Guyana. “They were last seen alive when they joined a white vehicle registered in his wife’s name,” a senior police source shared.
The timeline of the disappearance dates back to late August. Both men left their home addresses in Suriname on August 28, traveling in a Toyota Vitz to the border town of Nickerie. On August 29, they were spotted exiting the vehicle in Clarasluis before boarding a boat bound for Guyana. They were reported missing to Surinamese and Guyanese authorities on September 19.
As of Tuesday, Cromwell’s wife and brother remain in police custody as persons of interest in the disappearance investigation. Cromwell himself has been a person of international interest since June 2025, when the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions on him and Himnauth Sawh, a senior Guyanese police superintendent, alongside four other individuals including two Colombians and two Guyanese.
The sanctions were levied over allegations that the group was responsible for trafficking massive quantities of cocaine from South America to markets in the U.S., Europe, and the Caribbean. According to the Treasury Department’s announcement at the time, the network utilized fishing boats and narco-submarines to move the drugs, and operated covert airstrips for aircraft shipments. The allegations also named Sawh, who was commander of Guyana’s Region One at the time of a 2024 joint operation that uncovered 4.4 tonnes of cocaine near an illegal airstrip outside Mabaruma, as a corrupt law enforcement official facilitating the network’s operations.
Notably, none of the Guyanese individuals named in the U.S. sanctions have been charged with any criminal offenses in Guyana, and no extradition requests have been filed by U.S. authorities to try them on the drug trafficking allegations.