By Admin
Vincypowa News Staff
June 25, 2026 | Kingstown, St. Vincent & The Grenadines
A foreign national, identified by iWitness News as Scottish, has been shot and killed in Canouan, and two Vincentian men are in custody. That is the plain fact at the centre of what is rapidly becoming one of the most consequential criminal investigations in St. Vincent and the Grenadines in recent memory. But the significance of this killing extends well beyond the homicide itself.
The dead man has been identified by iWitness News as Daniel Vettrino, 37, a Scottish man and technical services manager at Canouan Estate Resort & Villas. Publicly available professional profile information also links Vettrino to Kirkcaldy, Scotland. Police had not issued an official statement confirming his nationality at the time of publication.
What elevates this killing from a tragic criminal matter to a national security event is what investigators now say about the victim’s connections and their relevance to a case that has been quietly unfolding for nearly two weeks.
The Link to the Missing Plane
Vettrino’s death has triggered an expansion of an ongoing investigation into the disappearance of a plane near Canouan earlier this month. Vettrino used to live in Colombia, and the two pilots of the plane are Colombians, according to well-placed sources. Additionally, the aircraft made at least one round trip between Canouan and Argyle International Airport two days before it disappeared.
That aircraft is the Dominican Republic-registered Beechcraft Baron B58T, registration HI-1145. It departed Argyle International Airport in St. Vincent on June 12, 2026 at 11:52 a.m., carrying two people on a scheduled 65-minute flight to the ANR Robinson International Airport in Tobago. Flight tracking data showed the aircraft cruising under visual flight rules at 4,025 feet before radar and transponder contact were lost over the Southern Caribbean Sea.
The aircraft never arrived in Tobago. What happened next is a story that has been told in fragments, through carefully worded official statements and a national security minister who has said just enough to confirm that something serious is happening, and nothing more.
Timeline: The Plane, the Flights, and the Killing
- June 10, 2026: HI-1145 completes a round trip between Canouan and Argyle International Airport — two days before it disappears.
- June 12, 2026, 11:52 a.m.: HI-1145 departs Argyle bound for Tobago with two people on board. Normal radio contact maintained until 40 nautical miles south of Argyle.
- June 12, approx. 12:11 p.m.: Last radio contact. Aircraft fails to arrive in Tobago. Distress phase initiated.
- June 15, 2026: Civil Aviation Department issues formal statement confirming the disappearance. Minister Leacock confirms on SVG TV that the plane has been located and no lives lost, but discloses no further details.
- June 16–17, 2026: Leacock gives a series of radio interviews, confirming the aircraft moved between South American destinations. Investigation declared a “very delicate security matter.”
- June 25, 2026, midnight: Daniel Vettrino, 37, Scottish national and technical services manager at Canouan Estate Resort, found shot dead in Jim Hill, Canouan. Two Vincentian men arrested.
- June 25, 2026: Sources confirm Vettrino previously lived in Colombia. The two pilots of HI-1145 are Colombian nationals. Investigators now examining a direct link between the killing and the missing plane.
What Leacock Said — and What He Did Not
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Security Major St. Clair Leacock has been the sole official voice on the HI-1145 matter since it became public. His statements have been notable as much for what they reveal as for what they withhold.
Leacock confirmed on NICE Radio that the plane did not crash and no lives were lost. He stated that the investigation had transitioned into a delicate security matter focusing on the individuals themselves rather than the aircraft.
“The international agencies know where the plane is. The regional agencies, our own police force know where the plane is. They have names, they know the flight history, but they are still in an operation in which, for me to speak on the subject matter, would be to compromise the quality of work. We are focused not so much on the aircraft, because aircraft don’t fly itself, but the people who fly in that aircraft.”
“I, out of professional duties and responsibilities, cannot at this time provide the public with more details as to what is happening in this very delicate security matter.” — St. Clair Leacock, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Security, SVG
In a subsequent update, Leacock said that reports from regional agencies indicated the aircraft had moved between different South American destinations over the preceding 24 to 48 hours. He emphasised the need for caution, noting that the incident remained a “moving story.” He also warned that even when transponders are disabled, sovereign states and regional organisations possess the technological means to monitor such covert movements.
Leacock has not said where the plane is. He has not named the two individuals on board. He has not confirmed whether criminal charges have been filed anywhere, or whether any extradition proceedings are underway. He has, however, confirmed that both CARICOM IMPACS and the Regional Security System — of which he serves as Chairman of the Council of Ministers — are actively involved.
That level of regional mobilisation, for a twin-engine light aircraft with two people aboard, tells its own story.
The Colombia Connection
The Colombian dimension now runs through every layer of this case. The two pilots aboard HI-1145 are Colombian nationals. The dead man in Canouan lived in Colombia before relocating to SVG. The aircraft is registered in the Dominican Republic — a jurisdiction that has featured repeatedly in regional narco-trafficking investigations — and flew into Canouan multiple times in the days before it vanished.
Investigators are now examining whether Vettrino’s killing is directly connected to whatever the aircraft was involved in during its Canouan visits. Sources have told iWitness News that police are actively looking at that link. Vincypowa News is not in a position to independently verify the precise nature of any such connection, but the convergence of these facts in one small island community in the Southern Grenadines is not a coincidence that law enforcement appears prepared to dismiss.
A Pattern That Cannot Be Ignored
This is not the first time an aircraft has vanished along the Canouan corridor. On December 22, 2023, a two-engine, 21-seat Gulfstream aircraft, registration number N337LR, departed Canouan on a “sightseeing excursion” with three passengers and a pilot on board. The pilot’s final contact with the tower occurred at 2:33 p.m. The aircraft turned up in Africa sometime later. The then-Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said information from regional and international agencies suggested the aircraft may have turned off its transponder, and that Vincentian authorities had been in touch with two Latin American countries of relevance.
Two planes. Both connected to Canouan. Both involving Latin American actors. Both with transponders deliberately disabled. The second disappearance now linked to a homicide on the same island.
Editor’s Note: Vincypowa News recognises that active law enforcement and intelligence operations place legitimate constraints on what can be publicly disclosed. We do not suggest Minister Leacock is wrong to guard operational details. What we do assert is that the Vincentian public — and the residents of Canouan in particular — deserve a clear accounting of what their government knows about the pattern of activity in their waters and airspace, and what is being done about it, once those operations have concluded.
A Homicide Count That Keeps Rising
Vettrino’s death brings the homicide count in St. Vincent and the Grenadines this year to 20, compared to 15 around the same period in 2025, according to police figures. It was the second killing in the country in as many days, with the other occurring in Lowmans Hill in St. Vincent. The victim in that killing is said to be St. Lucian, and police are working to ascertain his identity.
A 33 percent increase in homicides year-over-year, an international killing in a luxury resort community, a missing narco-linked aircraft, and a national security minister who knows more than he is saying. These are not isolated threads. They are part of a picture that SVG’s new NDP administration must now confront with the full weight of its national security mandate.
The Question Now Before the Government
Leacock has handled the public communications around HI-1145 with measured discipline. He has not panicked, not speculated, and not compromised an operation. That is appropriate. But the killing of Daniel Vettrino on the same island where that aircraft repeatedly operated raises the stakes beyond what careful messaging can contain.
The public now needs to know: when the operation concludes, what will the government tell SVG about what happened in its skies and on its shores? What institutional response is being developed to prevent Canouan from becoming a recurring transit point for criminal aviation? And what does the government intend to do, structurally, to address the security vulnerabilities that two successive plane disappearances have exposed?
Leacock has said he knows the names. He has said he knows where the plane is. The investigation is ongoing. When it is done, those answers must be public. The people of Canouan have buried a colleague. They are owed the truth.
Vincypowa News covers St. Vincent and the Grenadines politics, crime, and national security. This article draws on reporting by iWitness News, the St. Vincent Times, Caribbean360, and the Trinidad Express, as well as publicly available flight tracking data. Two Vincentian men are in custody in connection with the Vettrino killing. No charges have been publicly confirmed at time of publication.