UPDATE-Opposition politician said he feared for his life.

GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC – The leader of the main opposition We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party, Azruddin Mohamed, said Friday he feared for his life after police officers “in six or seven vehicles and more than 30 gunmen in masks” arrested him outside the office of the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA).

“I thought they wanted to kill me there or execute me there, and I asked what the problem was because these are the same guys that follow my move every day, these same Special Branch guys, Mohamed told reporters after he emerged from a Magistrate’s Court where he was granted GUY$150,000 (One Guyana dollar=US$0.008 cents) bail.

The 38-year-old politician, along with his 73-year-old billionaire father, Nazar Mohamed, had been arrested following a warrant issued by a Magistrate of the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court in response to an extradition request made by the United States.

The matter has been adjourned to November 10 this year, and the Mohameds are to report daily to a police station from November 7

The Mohameds are the subject of an indictment unsealed on October 6, 2025, by a United States Grand Jury sitting in the Southern District of Florida, which charges them with multiple offences, including wire fraud, mail fraud, money-laundering, conspiracy, aiding and abetting, and customs-related violations connected to an alleged US$50 million gold export and tax evasion scheme.

The indictment alleges that between 2017 and June 2024, the accused conspired to defraud the Guyana government by evading export taxes and royalties on over 10,000 kilograms of gold, using falsified customs declarations and reused export seals to disguise unpaid duties. The indictment further references the attempted shipment of US$5.3 million in undeclared gold seized at Miami International Airport, and the alleged under-invoicing of a luxury vehicle valued at over US$680,000.

According to the indictment, the alleged fraudulent scheme operated “from in or about 2017” through June 2024.

In June 2024, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned the Mohameds and their company, Mohamed’s Enterprise, citing allegations of tax evasion, trade-based money-laundering, and gold smuggling.

The young Mohamed, who led the WIN party to securing the second-largest number of seats in the National Assembly during the September 1 regional and general elections, is due to be sworn in as the Opposition Leader when the Parliament meets for the first time on Monday next week.

He told reporters that there is no doubt the charges resulted from the Guyana government’s involvement in the matter, noting that the sanction document issued against him last year also referenced government officials’ participation.

“I am innocent, this business, this gold business, the exportation of gold is not my business, it is my father’s business, I am a gold miner, but they used this in hopes of getting sanctioned. All I have to say is that the government is fully behind the sanctions, and it has agents working in the United States of America with whom they are in talks,” Mohamed told reporters.

One of his attorneys, Roysdale Forde, speaking to reporters outside the Magistrate’s Court, said there would be several challenges about the extradition request.

“We are nowhere close to even beginning …there will be several significant challenges all the way to the CCJ (Caribbean Court of Justice). I can assure members of the public that this is an important issue.

“I believe it was not lost on the court, that on Monday, Mr. Mohamed is to be elected, as the Opposition Leader. It is not lost on the court at this last hour that such proceedings would have been filed.

“It is clearly an effort, we believe, to prevent that from happening,” he said, adding that the state would make other efforts to prevent that from happening.

“What we have is a string of unsubstantiated statements…you cannot make such a serious accusation bordering on treason and come to the court and simply make a statement. These things were allegedly happening for months, and the state of Guyana is armed not only with extradition facilities, but they are armed under the law with the right to put a citizen into preventative detention.

“If you know …that the person is likely to be the leader of the opposition…you could go to the High Court and get an order. But they have done nothing and come today and raise these red herrings to prevent the grant of bail,” Forde added.