Dear Editor,
When Minister within the Office of the Prime Minister, Kwame McCoy, slammed Azruddin Mohamed as ‘a notorious, barefaced liar,’ he was simply reminding us all of a well-established fact: Azruddin Mohamed is a congenital fabricator. Indeed, it is no secret that this troubled blatherskite, named Mohamed, has dug an inextricable hole for himself with his ‘distortionist tales’ that border on the bizarre at times. I will illustrate with a classic case where his dissembling was well delineated in the local press.
For this, I revisit the occasion when the dissimulating, now turned Opposition Leader, had to face several charges from the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) for ‘allegedly’ making false declarations regarding his luxury vehicle imports. The evidence-based facts are quite accessible and very revealing, giving credence to what Minister McCoy blasted him for.
The details of this GRA case revolve around deliberate ‘alleged undervaluation’ of high-end vehicles for the sole purpose of evading significant legal tax payments concomitant with the transactions regarding the said vehicles.
For example, concerning the Lamborghini Roadster SVJ, Mohamed was accused of declaring a purchase price of merely US$75,300 in December 2020, while the GRA contended the actual value was US$695,000. From my personal inquiries, a “low-end” (lower-priced) used Lamborghini Aventador SVJ Roadster typically starts around US$750,000 to US$900,000.
This kind of fabrication for the purpose of ‘tax evasion’ means that Mohamed wants to circumvent approximately GY$383 million in taxes. And this is not all.
Mohamed and his family have significantly and willfully undervalued other luxury vehicles, seeking a total of roughly GY$1.2 billion in unpaid taxes. From what I gather, these issues and more will resurface, as there is a ‘stay of proceedings’ to avoid a conflict with the ongoing United States extradition proceedings against the Mohameds for separate federal charges, from which condemnatory evidence is going to be cascading when the matter is heard.
It is common knowledge now that all of these legal troubles evolved from the 2024 sanctions by the U.S. Department of the Treasury (OFAC) against Azruddin and his father, Nazar Mohamed, for alleged extensive gold smuggling and public corruption.
Now getting back to the Minister, it is very observable that, as he said, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) is “a mass-based political party with hundreds of thousands of supporters,” adding, however, “that while supporters are not controlled in their personal lives, the party expects them to live a life of lawfulness and decency.” This kind of philosophy then precludes the party from ‘intervening’ in any form or fashion in extending ‘collusive’ protection to anyone in exchange for party patronage.
The core of Minister McCoy’s haranguing of Mohamed is that he, Mohamed, is fundamentally accusing the PPP and the DPP of being in some kind of machination regarding “the criminal case involving PPP/C councillor for the Haslington-Grove Neighbourhood Democratic Council, Ronita Stuart Ram.” The unfiltered truth is that according to “the public record, Stuart was charged [for drug trafficking] alongside Ranjeev Ram, Maikhram Ram, and Savitri Ram.”
This issue is ongoing, and nothing untoward inheres in it. The PPP/C and the DPP are not only independent entities, but they are not attempting to disembarrass or disburden the accused lot where the legal unfolding is being ‘true to legal’ course and procedure.
The Minister tersely puts it that “… there is no difference between the way that the case of Stuart and the case of the Mohameds were (and are being) dealt with.” What Azrudin is vainly trying to do is to foist on the public that senior government officials had influenced the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in Stuart’s matter.
Of note too is that the justly piqued DPP, Shalimar Ali-Hack, SC, in her separate and detailed statement “… strongly condemned Azruddin Mohamed for what she described as “the deliberate dissemination of false, misleading, and damaging information.” In fact, as she referenced, it was her office that green-lighted the charges to be laid “… based on the evidence contained in the police file and the applicable law.” It is now documented history that “ the four accused were subsequently charged on March 4, 2026, appeared before Magistrate Orinthia Schmidt at the Cove and John Magistrates’ Court, and pleaded not guilty.” Granted bail in the sum of $1M each, the matter will follow the ‘Rule of Law,’ and the public will follow.
What is Mohamed pettifogging about? I guess he is seeking distractions as his ‘day’ is rapidly approaching. Instead, he needs to summon his wit and garner his ‘evidence’ to counter his charges. If not, he will not even have a platform to voice his mythomaniacal urges.