THIS article puts into perspective the pervasive comparison made by opposition elements to equivocate the 2018 fraud charges brought against MP Irfaan Ali who was elected President in 2020, with the 2026 election of Azruddin Mohamed as leader of the opposition despite international sanctions in 2024 and US grand-jury indictment and active extradition proceedings in 2025. This article is presented in three parts.
To appreciate the predicament of the Mohameds, we need to at least have a cursory appreciation for the US economic structure and justice system to understand the nature of sanctions and grand-jury indictments. The reports are all over the media and were confirmed by the US Ambassador. The OFAC sanctions came after multiple US law enforcement and security agencies conducted investigations over a number of years. The indictments came after prosecutors satisfied themselves that there are facts that exceed the minimum threshold to secure a conviction. Despite this, the Mohameds and their surrogates have said that the sanctions and indictment of the father-son combo were instigated by the Government of Guyana.
This theory of a Government of Guyana orchestration and political persecution cannot be true, here is why. The Mohameds have said that they were so close to the PPP that during that 2020 elections fiasco the leaders relied on the family to be shuttled in luxury vehicles with armed security escorts. Azruddin Mohamed also claimed that he funded the legal fees for the PPP to employ a bigshot Trinidadian lawyer to fight their election cases against the APNU+AFC’s “illegal occupation” of government. In March 2021, ‘Paper Shorts’ was killed on Main Street, Azruddin was alleged to have ties to that murder. The investigations are alleged to have collapsed at the desk of Major Crimes Unit head Mr Mitchell Caesar. At that time, the APNU+AFC’s mulish opposition machinery was in full swing, the younger Mohamed “was being protected by the installed PPP government,” they claimed.
Mohamed claimed he and the President exchanged DMs up to mid-January 2021 concerning his Lamborghini import. Then a circulated image of a multimillion-dollar cheque alleged to be part of regular contributions to the PPP as late as 2023. In fact, the elder Mohammed ran and won a seat for the PPP in the Eccles-Ramsburg NDC at the 2023 Local Government Elections. Also, in 2023 and early 2024, the government hailed the ingenuity of a consortium involving the Mohameds for building a shore base facility and Guyana’s first artificial island. Judging from available public records, it would seem that the Mohammeds and the PPP government were best of friends until sometime after the June 2024 sanctions took effect.
My own belief is that the Mohameds expected their ‘friends’ in the PPP to ignore the implications of the sanctions and forge ways to keep them in the business and financial mainstream of Guyana. When the government followed international imperatives and opted not to offer any special treatment, the Mohameds responded in a fit of deranged anger. They thought there was sufficient family entitlement in the PPP to compel the government to defy the geopolitical implications, protect the family and make them unreachable to US law-enforcement efforts.
Based on widely reported Reuters publications, we know that the investigations against the Mohameds included drug trafficking; links to military and state actors in Venezuela; gold smuggling involving connections in the Middle East, bribery and money laundering. This would likely have some involvement of any or all of the following US security or law-enforcement agencies: DEA (drug trafficking); CIA (Middle East trade Links and Venezuela activities); FBI (breach of federal statutes); OFAC (money laundering and other financial crimes); NSA (determine possible threats to US security); DOJ (prosecutions and indictments).
A grand jury indictment is similar in nature to a preliminary inquiry in Guyana. Judicial officials listen to the scale of evidence in the state’s position, the quality of witnesses it intends to call and determine that, if a full-scale trial were to be conducted, based on that information, there is a realistic chance of securing a conviction. Consistent with recent views expressed by US Ambassador Theriot, “this is our indictment … we firmly believe that they are guilty of the crimes they have been indicted for.”
The US certainly dedicated endless hours of investigation into the activities of the Mohameds spread over a number of years, and given the extent and intent of the investigations, it could not be cheap. It could not be a trifling matter in which external influencers (such as the Government of Guyana) (GoG) could penetrate. The mere suggestion that the GoG had a hand in directing or arranging the indictment against the Mohameds has to rise to the level of preposterous asininity, a complete absurdity. No doubt, despite their public posture of denials, the Mohameds understand the dynamics very well. Perhaps, the recently surfaced credible allegations that members of the Mohameds made clandestine late-night visits to the Cuban Ambassador is a play for asylum to a country that does not extradite international fugitive offenders to the US.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.