• confirms Guyana will diligently handle extradition requests

WITH recent reports of a United States federal grand jury indicting two sanctioned businessmen, on counts of fraud and money laundering, Attorney General Anil (AG) Nandlall has said that it is nonsensical to contend that these indictments are motivated by a political agenda.

Nandlall was at the time speaking on his weekly show, Issues in the News, during which he spoke on the recent reports of Nazar Mohamed and his son, Azruddin Mohamed, being indicted on 11 counts, including wire fraud, gold smuggling and money laundering.

Since the release of the documents in this regard, the Mohameds have sought to claim political persecution. However, it was against this backdrop that the Attorney General noted that it was nonsensical for anyone to contend that this is so.

“It is obviously nonsensical for anyone to contend that these processes, or this process, is being motivated by some political agenda [or] is inspired by some political incentive, or is in any manner whatsoever, tainted by politics or some other irrelevant consideration,” he said.

He noted that a perusal of the particulars detailed in the indictment in relation to the 11 counts that are alleged against the two individuals would show that they span a period that goes back to 2017, which means the process commenced long before the PPP/C got into office.

With this, he noted that the process has spanned two governments of both the United States and Guyana from 2017, and the last activity forming the subject of a count date to 2024.

He noted, “One has to be delusional to entertain that type of thinking to conceive that the PPP has the ability to influence the mighty Department of Justice of the United States of America and the accompanying law enforcement agencies of the U.S. to carry out political agendas of the PPP. To think that the PPP is able to persuade those mighty organisations to carry out its political agenda that must be the product of a special mind.”

Meanwhile, speaking on the process, he noted that since the case was officially entered into the court’s records, the next step for the United States would be to request the extradition of the two individuals.

That process, he said, is a legal one and contained in an extradition framework between the government of the United States and the Government of Guyana.

Once that request is made, a process outlined in Guyana’s Fugitive Offenders Act is triggered, and a series of legal steps have to be followed, all of which are outlined in the legislation.

Nandlall stated, “This is not a new process, and Guyana as an independent country would have done dozens of extraditions to the United States and dozens to other countries as well. Just this year, we did one to the U.S. and one to Canada, as a result of requests made by the government of the U.S. and the Government of Canada.”

With years of already established relations with various states in relation to extraditions built on mutuality and reciprocity, the Attorney General stated that Guyana has made it clear that it is ready to discharge its legal duties and obligations.

“Guyana has made it very clear that it is ready, willing and the most able to diligently discharge its legal duties and obligations under the current extradition framework that exists with the United States of America in relation to this matter, and we remain committed to that course,” he said.

The case against the Mohameds which was entered into the court’s record on October 2, 2025, according to documents seen by the Guyana Chronicle, sketches a trail of gold and deceit that began in 2017, during the tenure of the APNU+AFC Coalition government and allegedly ran for seven years flowing from Georgetown to Miami and from Dubai to California, through a system designed to evade taxes and enrich the men behind one of Guyana’s largest gold exporters.

The indictment cites several provisions of U.S. law, including 18 U.S.C. §§ 1349, 1343, 1341, 2, 1956(h), 981(a)(1)(C), and 982(a)(1), which cover wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering conspiracy, and forfeiture of assets linked to unlawful activity.