IN the wake of Guyanese pilot Khamraj Lall being convicted in the United States for smuggling cash, the Guyana Government will be seeking avenues to forfeit all illegal gains made by Lall through money laundering and drug smuggling.Minister of State Joseph Harmon said: “There are assets here in Guyana, and it is in the interest of the State to ensure that those assets are secured in the event that we have to take further steps or actions.”
Lall was nabbed by Puerto Rican authorities in a high-profile arrest in November, 2014, while transporting more than US$600,000 in cash aboard his jet. He is facing up to two years in jail.
In a plea deal submitted and being reviewed by the United States District Court of Puerto Rico, Captain Khamraj Lall agreed to be forfeited of US$620,588 along with the 1988 Israel fixed-wing, multi-engine aircraft bearing registration N822Ql, which was used in commission of the crime.
Under the deal with the U.S. Government, Lall pleaded guilty to one count of concealing more than US$10,000 in his plane, and attempting to transfer it outside of the U.S. to Guyana. He would have been facing up to five years’ imprisonment on a number of charges if he had opted for a trial and had been found guilty.
Lall, who operated a hangar at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport and controlled KayLees Gas Station at Coverden, East Bank Demerara, has also agreed that other assets may be subject to forfeiture, as there is still a pending civil matter for assets seizure in New Jersey, another U.S. territory where he has homes, vehicles, cash and other properties.
He will remain on restricted freedom until the October 27 sentencing hearing before Judge Jay Garcia-Gregory.
In addition to imprisonment, the court will impose a term of supervised release of not more than five years, with no possibility of parole or the sentence being suspended for any reason.
The U.S. Government had used laws which allow properties that are linked to illegal transactions to be seized. As Puerto Rico is a territory of the U.S., the country’s tax body, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), had stepped into the matter, going after Lall’s bank accounts, his Lexus car and two planes.
Apparently working on information, investigators started tracking Lall’s deposits to accounts held at Wells Fargo, Citibank and JP Morgan, and found startling evidence that between April 2011 and September 2014, the pilot and family members had deposited an astounding US$6,324,411.41 (Gy$1.3B). There were over a thousand transactions.
The IRS believes that a scheme was devised wherein Lall and others deliberately deposited less than US$10,000 each time in attempts not to trigger suspicion by banks which are mandated to report transactions above that amount. Lall’s wife, Nadinee, and mother, Joyce, were named in the transactions.
The U.S. Government has said that while it is not yet requesting seizures of properties that the Lalls controlled in three states, it intends to do so, as proceeds of the deposits were used to renovate or pay mortgages.
By Rabindra Rooplall
