A federal jury has convicted 27-year-old Margate resident Avin “Smalls” Seetaram on murder-for-hire, stalking and firearms charges tied to the 2023 killing of aircraft mechanic Suren Seetal, a case prosecutors say began with a $315,000 debt and ended with a body dumped in the Everglades. Seetaram now faces the possibility of life in federal prison.
According to the NBC 6 South Florida report, Seetaram was convicted of murder-for-hire conspiracy, murder for hire, stalking resulting in death, discharging a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, conspiracy to use and carry a firearm during a crime of violence, and causing a person's death through use of a firearm. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida reported that the federal jury found Seetaram guilty on the full slate of charges, according to the same report. He was one of three men arrested in the kidnapping and murder of Seetal, prosecutors say, alongside 32-year-old Christopher “Lil Chris” Singh and Gavin Hunter.
Seetal, 36, worked as an aircraft mechanic at both Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport and Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport, according to the Miami Herald. He also co-owned a fireworks business with Singh and Seetaram, the outlet reports. He disappeared on Nov. 2, 2023, after leaving work at Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport.
A Debt, a Warehouse, and a Failed First Attempt
Prosecutors say the plot traced back to roughly $315,000 that Singh owed Seetal from their fireworks venture, an amount cited in an arrest affidavit. The same reporting from the Miami Herald states that an FBI notebook referenced in the case documented that debt. The conspirators first targeted Seetal in July 2023, tracking him and sending a gunman to kill him, but Seetal and the gunman exchanged gunfire that July without anyone being struck, according to the facts laid out in the case.
The plan succeeded months later. The conspirators lured Seetal to a business in November 2023, and the Miami Herald's reporting specifies that the FBI said he was drawn to a Miramar warehouse housing Singh's heating and air-conditioning company. A gunman believed to be Gavin Hunter ambushed and shot Seetal there, and Seetaram and Singh paid the gunman for carrying out the killing — Singh reportedly handed Seetaram $5,000 to pass along to Hunter to pull the trigger, per the indictment details reported by the Miami Herald.
Body Found Weeks Later, Cart Purchase Raises Red Flags
Accounts of where Seetal's body was ultimately left differ. The Miami Herald reported that police found his partially decomposed remains with a gunshot wound to the head in a wooded area off Snake Road within the Big Cypress Seminole reservation on Nov. 21, 2023, while NBC 6 South Florida described the body as having been dumped in the Florida Everglades. Seetaram and Singh disposed of the body, prosecutors allege.
In the aftermath, Seetaram and Singh bought a 96-gallon yard-waste cart for $124 in cash on Nov. 3, 2023, the day after Seetal vanished — a purchase investigators later flagged as part of the evidence trail.
Co-Defendant Already Sentenced, Third Suspect Awaits Trial
Singh has already pleaded guilty to murder-for-hire conspiracy, murder for hire and other related charges and was sentenced to life in federal prison, the station's report notes. Gavin Hunter's case has not been resolved; his trial remains pending, according to the same account.
U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones addressed the severity of the scheme in a statement carried by the outlet, saying, “This was not a spontaneous act of violence. It was a deliberate, persistent, and cold-blooded murder-for-hire scheme.” Seetaram faces up to 20 years in federal prison on the count of conspiracy to use and carry a firearm during a crime of violence, and up to life in prison on the remaining counts.
The case echoes other federal murder-for-hire prosecutions in South Florida. In a separate 2019 case, a federal jury convicted three South Florida men for their involvement in a murder-for-hire plot, with prosecutors saying they faced life in prison, according to FBI Miami.
