GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC – A new session of the Guyana Parliament began here on Monday, with legislators taking their oaths, including the leader of the main opposition We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party, Azruddin Mohamed, who is facing extradition to the United States on fraud and money laundering charges.
The parliamentary meeting was the first since the September 1 regional and general elections, which re-elected the ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C). Still, unlike previous occasions, the new session was not addressed by President Irfaan Ali.
Ali, however, has dismissed the notion that the Parliament was delayed to facilitate “an extradition,” saying this is “totally disconnected from the truth and it is a notion that is created for a specific intention and a specific purpose”.
In an interview with the state-owned Department of Public Information (DPI) hours ahead of the opening of the new Parliament, Ali said he would address the new legislators after the election of an Opposition Leader and that the other administrative issues would be completed.
”I definitely will be substantively addressing Parliament, outlining the vision, outlining the strategy, and outlining where we want to position Guyana for all of Guyana,” he added.
During the 16-minute interview, Ali sought to distance his ruling party from any involvement in the court matter that followed the extradition request by the United States justice officials involving the politician and his billionaire businessman father, Nazar Mohamed.
The Mohameds were arrested and granted GUY$150,000 (One Guyana dollar = 0.004 cents) bail last Friday, a day after the United States formally submitted an extradition request to Guyana.
The 38-year-old politician along with his 73-year-old father, 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 in the last election, was sworn in as a member of Parliament on Monday. Still, no date has been given for when the election of an opposition leader, for whom he is in line to become, will take place.
During the interview, President Ali said that, following the OFAC sanctions, the United States government had been working with the Guyana government to provide details regarding the Mohameds.
“The government took all the administrative steps and measures necessitated by the sanction…and an international investigation was ongoing into gold smuggling, money laundering, and other criminal activities.
“We made clear we were going to work closely with our international partners to ensure that what legal and administrative steps must be taken would be taken,” Ali said, insisting that there was nothing “political” about the US moves.
He said Mohamed entered the political fray, “and then suddenly used it as a scenario where he is being discriminated against by the People’s Progressive Party government…which is a total lie”.
Ali insisted that Washington had made an extradition request and it is being processed, adding, “This has nothing to do with the victim syndrome or claims of political prosecution.
“This is a clear investigation that started long before 2020, an investigation that has followed legal and administrative mechanisms, an investigation that has crossed jurisdiction (and) …international in nature.”
Ali said that the Guyana government is convinced that there is enough evidence to process the extradition requests.
“The extradition request was made in accordance with the legal and administrative mechanisms. That request, like many others before it, has been processed by the government of Guyana after examining the evidence and being convinced that there is a clear case.
“Now, that extradition request has been made and that request is being processed, this has nothing to do with the victim syndrome or claiming political persecution,” Ali said, reiterating that the investigation against the Mohameds started long before his government took office, and that his government cannot be held responsible for what is taking place.
“This is not an investigation that originated from here; this is an investigation that is international in nature. So, this notion that the Parliament was delayed for an extradition is totally disconnected from the truth, and it is a notion that is created for a specific intention and specific purpose.”
The Mohameds once shared close ties with the President and his Government, donating millions to the governing party and supporting its campaigns over the years. In the last Local Government Election, Nazar Mohamed was elected to the Eccles NDC as a PPP Councillor. He has since resigned from the post.
Meanwhile, Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, said that several landmark pieces of legislation will be introduced in the new Parliament.
He told reporters that the new legislation will cut across sectors to ensure a structured approach to how things are done.
“It will largely be a continuation of what we left off. Significantly, what we will act with are the promises and commitments which were made in our manifesto, and some extraordinary and big pieces of legislation will come, I don’t want to name all, because the mention of some will diminish the importance of others all,” Nandlall said.
He said that while the government’s legislative agenda will essentially be a continuation of the last Parliament, some new and progressive legislation will be introduced.
“We will continue to pursue a very aggressive legislative agenda that is designed to advance the modernization of Guyana, to advance the interest of all Guyanese and to advance our manifesto commitments,” Nandlall said.
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