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Friday, July 25, 2025

Businesswoman ambushed, killed

by

719 days ago
20230806

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Mon­ey, a fam­i­ly feud or some­thing else? It’s not clear yet why busi­ness­woman Veron­i­ca Al­li­son De Leon was mur­dered, but po­lice say it was well-planned and ex­e­cut­ed. De Leon, 43, a moth­er of four, was am­bushed and shot dead short­ly af­ter 6 am yes­ter­day as she left her home at Jin­jul Street, Phillip­ine, near San Fer­nan­do.

CCTV footage of the in­ci­dent showed De Leon try­ing to es­cape when she re­alised her life was in dan­ger. Sec­onds af­ter she drove off from her home in her Range Rover and slowed down at the end of her street, a white AD wag­on came from the op­po­site di­rec­tion and stopped in front her ve­hi­cle. An oc­cu­pant armed with a gun came and ran to­wards her ve­hi­cle. De Leon re­versed al­most to her front gate, with the AD wag­on and gun­man chas­ing her. The wag­on stopped along­side her van. The cam­era did not pick up the gun­man, but sec­onds lat­er, he ran back and en­tered the wag­on which sped off.

There were bul­let holes in the dri­ver’s side win­dow of DeLeon’s ve­hi­cle. She was shot mul­ti­ple times and died at the scene.

De Leon and her late hus­band, Nestor, owned De Leon Ba­nanas Ltd. He died from COVID-19 last Jan­u­ary.

A close fam­i­ly friend said De Leon had com­plained about get­ting threats, but a po­lice source said there was no record in their data­base that she had re­port­ed any threats.

Fol­low­ing her hus­band’s death, De Leon took to Face­book to vent her frus­tra­tion.

In one of the posts, she wrote: “I wan­na take this time to re­al­ly post this. I’ve been try­ing to sur­vive since my hus­band died. My kids and I have been through hell and back. All that has been done for my kids, is me.”

She post­ed that her hus­band’s rel­a­tives be­lieved he left her with mil­lions, but she said any claim for mon­ey had to go through her lawyers.

In an­oth­er post, a rel­a­tive of De Leon’s hus­band ex­pressed un­hap­pi­ness that they had not been able to par­take in his wealth. The rel­a­tive said they had no is­sue with her and hoped they could reach an agree­ment.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed De Leon’s home, rel­a­tives de­clined com­ment.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Pres­i­dent of San Fer­nan­do Greater Area Cham­ber of Com­merce Ki­ran Singh said the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty was shocked and alarmed at an­oth­er mur­der in south Trinidad. He said based on the CCTV footage cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia it is clear rob­bery was not the mo­tive.

“We keep won­der­ing where is the in­creased po­lice pa­trols promised. This is a qui­et com­mu­ni­ty. She was leav­ing home to tend to her busi­ness,” he said.

Singh said he hoped the po­lice would be able to use the footage to iden­ti­fy the crim­i­nals and ar­rest them.


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