A corruption thesis with a family blind spot

November 5, 20264 min read

Dear Editor,

Hadiyyah Mohamed’s master’s dissertation has been sold to the Guyanese public as an exposé. Her brother announced it under the banner “Exposing the Structures of Corruption, Political Power and Governance Under the PPP/C.” The work, an MLitt dissertation at the University of St Andrews titled “Postcolonial State Formation and Corruption in Guyana: Power, Ethnicity and Governance Under the PPP/C,^[1] it is now circulated by WIN supporters as though a Scottish university had delivered a verdict on the Government of Guyana. It did no such thing. The dissertation deserves to be read for what it is and for what it leaves out.

Start with the method. On the family’s own account, the research rests on 232 questionnaire responses and interviews with two persons, former President Donald Ramotar and commentator Charles Sugrim. Its headline finding is that 94 per cent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that corruption remains a significant problem in Guyana. That is a finding about belief, not about conduct. Even the examiner, the family, is so proud to quote and praise her use of interviews “to examine public perceptions of corruption”. Perceptions. Survey research of this kind has a legitimate place in the social sciences. It can tell us what a group of people think. It cannot tell us who took a bribe, which contract was rigged, or what any court has found. In the summary the family has released, no conviction, no audit finding, and no judgement sits beside the percentages. Opinion is doing all the work.

Then there is the sample. The public has not been told how those 232 persons were recruited, when they were surveyed, through which networks the questionnaire travelled, or whether anything was offered for taking part. Those are not pedantic questions. The author stood as a candidate for WIN. A political candidate asking a self-selected group to rate the integrity of her opponents, with no published sampling frame, is not running a neutral instrument. Send the questionnaire to the right crowd, and 94 per cent is not a finding; it is a forecast. Until the questionnaire, the recruitment method and the raw responses are made public, those numbers should carry no weight in national debate.

Now consider the omission. The most consequential corruption case in modern Guyanese history does not need a questionnaire. In June 2024, the US Treasury found that between 2019 and 2023, Mohamed’s Enterprise omitted more than 10,000 kilograms of gold from its declarations, avoided more than US$50 million in duties owed to the Guyanese people, and paid bribes to customs officials to falsify import and export documents.^[2] Treasury also designated Hadi’s World, a subsidiary of Mohamed’s Enterprise that carries her name. A federal grand jury has since indicted her father and brother, and the United States has requested their extradition.^[3] These findings came from US Homeland Security Investigations, the FBI and other American agencies, not from Freedom House and not from a survey. A dissertation on corruption in Guyana’s oil era that finds room for a governing party’s alleged patronage but not for the largest alleged gold-tax fraud of the same years is not scholarship. It is selective vision, and the blind spot happens to be the family home.

Nor is gold the only file. Consider the Lamborghini. In October 2020, a Texas dealer, International Speed Consulting, invoiced Azruddin Mohamed US$695,000 for a Lamborghini Aventador SVJ Roadster.^[4] Bank records the GRA obtained from GBTI show US$622,000 wired to that company over three days, described not as a car purchase but as racing services and parts, race support, travel, and marketing and advertising. Two months later, the same car, matched by its chassis number, was declared to Guyana’s customs at US$75,300, less than a ninth of the invoice. In court filings, he put the price at about US$76,000. The invoice reached the GRA from the US Department of Justice under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty. In May 2025, he was charged with making a false declaration and with fraudulent evasion under the Customs Act, and he pleaded not guilty. Those charges were not dismissed on the merits. The DPP discontinued them in November 2025 because the United States had requested his extradition, and the car now features in the US indictment itself.

That is not a perception survey. It is an invoice, a wire record and a customs form, and they do not agree. Weeks before the charges, GRA officers who went to the family’s Houston home to seize vehicles in a duties dispute were turned back by a crowd that blocked their way. A dissertation about who in Guyana treats the public revenue as optional had its case study parked in the family driveway.

And here lies the irony. Ms Mohamed did not study this case from a distance. She grew up inside it. The family fortune, on which the racing team, the luxury cars and, by all appearances, a new political party have been built, comes from the same gold business that Washington alleges ran on undeclared gold, evaded duties, and bribed customs officers. If those allegations are proven, that business will stand as the largest and most powerful corrupt corporate network in this country’s history, and the family around it as its principal beneficiaries. A company bearing her name is already on the Treasury’s sanctions list. A scholar so placed had two honest options: confront the case head-on or declare her interest and leave the subject to others. She did neither. She turned her lens on everyone else. A corruption thesis written from inside the house in question that leaves out the house does not expose power. It is power explaining why the problem lies elsewhere.

So let us apply her own standard. If what people say and believe is admissible evidence of corruption, then what is said, reported, and investigated about her own household is far more specific than anything in her questionnaire.

Yours sincerely,
Concerned Citizen

References

Public critique challenges St Andrews dissertation on Guyana corruptionenglish.pravda.ru ↩
Archived: HSI New York Joins Department of Treasury in Announcing Sanctions Against Corruption Network in Guyanawww.ice.gov ↩
Azruddin, Nazar Mohamed arrested after extradition request from US Govtguyanatimesgy.com ↩
Documents show Azruddin Mohamed bought Lamborghini for US$695,000- court records – Demerara Waves Online News- Guyanademerarawaves.com ↩

Public critique challenges St Andrews dissertation on Guyana corruption

english.pravda.ru, Nov 5, 2026

A public critique has emerged challenging the validity of an MLitt dissertation from the University of St Andrews, authored by Hadiyyah Mohamed, which has been promoted by supporters of the WIN party as an exposé on corruption and governance under the PPP/C administration. The academic work, titled "Postcolonial State Formation and Corruption in Guyana: Power, Ethnicity and Governance Under the PPP/C,” relies primarily on a survey of 232 questionnaire responses and interviews with two individuals: former President Donald Ramotar and commentator Charles Sugrim. The central finding-that 94 per cent of respondents believe corruption remains a significant problem in Guyana-has been characterized by critics as a measure of public perception rather than evidence of legal misconduct or audited financial irregularities. Questions have been raised regarding the sampling methodology of the research. The author, who stood as a candidate for the WIN party, did not disclose the recruitment process for the 232 participants or the networks used to distribute the questionnaire. Critics argue that without a published sampling frame or raw data, the findings represent a forecast based on a self-selected group rather than a neutral academic instrument. ... The dissertation has come under scrutiny for omitting specific, documented allegations of financial fraud involving the author's own family business. In June 2024, the US Treasury reported that between 2019 and 2023, Mohamed's Enterprise omitted over 10,000 kilograms of gold from declarations, avoided more than US$50 million in duties, and engaged in the bribery of customs officials. These findings were produced by the FBI and US Homeland Security Investigations. Hadi's World, a subsidiary bearing the author's name, was also designated in these sanctions. Further discrepancies have been highlighted regarding the import of a luxury vehicle. Records from the US Department of Justice, obtained via the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, indicate that Azruddin Mohamed wired US$622,000 for a Lamborghini Aventador SVJ Roadster. However, the vehicle was declared to Guyana Customs at a value of US$75,300. While charges for false declaration and fraudulent evasion under the Customs Act were filed in May 2025, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) discontinued the proceedings in November 2025 following a US extradition request. The critique asserts that the author's failure to address these documented cases-while focusing on the perceived patronage of the governing party-constitutes a selective application of research. It is argued that a study on corruption conducted by an individual whose family business is subject to international sanctions and US federal indictments requires a full declaration of interest or a direct confrontation of the evidence to maintain academic integrity.

Archived: HSI New York Joins Department of Treasury in Announcing Sanctions Against Corruption Network in Guyana

www.ice.gov, Jun 12, 2024

Azruddin, Nazar Mohamed arrested after extradition request from US Govt

guyanatimesgy.com, Nov 1, 2025

United States (US)-sanctioned businessmen Azruddin Mohamed and Nazar “Shell” Mohamed were on Friday arrested in Georgetown following a formal request by the US Government for their extradition in connection with 11 charges relating to fraud, money laundering and other indictments in a Florida court. The Guyana Government received the extradition request from the US Government on Thursday, October 30, for the Mohameds, who are the subject of an indictment unsealed on October 6, 2025, by a US Grand Jury sitting in the Southern District of Florida. ... The US indictment 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. Guyanese Government officials had previously indicated that they will act on any extradition request made by the US for the Mohameds. In a statement on Friday, the Attorney General Chambers said that Thursday’s request was pursuant to an extradition treaty between the US and the United Kingdom (UK), which extends to and remains in force in Guyana under the provisions of Section 4(1)(a) of the Fugitive Offenders Act, Cap. 10:04 as amended by Act No. 10 of 2024. The Mohameds were subsequently arrested separately on Friday morning, after an arrest warrant was issued by City Magistrate Judy Latchman, based on an application made by a team of lawyers led by Terrence Williams, KC, Herbert McKenzie and Celine Deidrick. Azruddin Mohamed, who founded the We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) political party and is gearing up to enter Parliament next week, was arrested at around 11:00h on Smyth Street in Georgetown. The 38-year-old businessman was approached by ranks of the Guyana Police Force’s (GPF) Special Branch, handcuffed and placed in the back of a Police pick-up vehicle before being whisked away by heavily armed officers. The Police later reported that the 73-year-old Nazar Mohamed was arrested at another location in Georgetown, also on Friday. ... Extradition proceedings The father and son duo was taken into custody at the Brickdam Police Station and later escorted to the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts, where they appeared before Magistrate Latchman to commence the judicial extradition process. The Mohameds were granted bail in the sum of $150,000 each and are required to lodge their passports as well as report to the Ruimveldt Police Station every Friday pending the outcome of the proceedings. Both of the Mohameds maintained their innocence while speaking with reporters at the city courthouse following the nearly three-hour-long hearing on Friday afternoon, with Azruddin distancing himself from the operations of Mohamed’s Enterprise – the company under which the gold was allegedly smuggled. “I am innocent… This gold business [and] the exportation of gold is not my business. It’s my father’s business. I’m a gold miner,” the 38-year-old businessman told reporters. However, the Florida court document states that the younger Mohamed owns 10 per cent of Mohamed’s Enterprise, while his father holds 90 per cent ownership. Nevertheless, during Friday’s court proceedings, the two businessmen were represented by Attorneys Siand Dhurjon and Roysdale Forde, who argued that the offences for which their clients are wanted in the US are not extraditable offences. “There is a basic principle of all extradition laws, internationally, that there must be dual criminality. So, the conduct for which they are wanted in America ought to be criminal not only in America but also in Guyana. Mail fraud and wire fraud are strangers to the laws of our land, so they’re not extraditable offences,” Dhurjon told reporters after the hearing. However, the lawyer pointed out that the money laundering charge could fit, noting that “we will face the music concerning those offences.” The lawyer went on to note that the defence team also alleged a constitutional breach in the amendments to the Fugitive Offenders Act – the local law under which extraditions fall. “The constitution says where we raise such a constitutional point, the magistrate is duty-bound to refer it to the High Court. So, we come back in November…to debate on that point further,” Dhurjon stated. Pleased with the outcome of Friday’s hearing, the attorney declared, “We don’t believe our clients are going anywhere. They’re not going to be extradited to the US, in my legal opinion.” Attorney Forde contended that they are “nowhere close” to dealing with the extradition proceeding given the number of constitutional issues that the defence raised. “All these issues will certainly lead to a number of challenges all the way to the CCJ (Caribbean Court of Justice),” Forde told reporters. US indictments Nevertheless, the AG Chambers had noted in Friday’s missive that the two Mohameds are being processed in accordance with the extradition framework set out in the provisions of the Fugitive Offenders Act, as amended, in due compliance with the relevant provisions of the Constitution of Guyana and all other relevant laws. The Florida court indictment alleges that between 2017 and June 2024, the two accused conspired to defraud the Government of Guyana 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 the Miami International Airport and the alleged under-invoicing of a luxury vehicle valued at over US$680,000. According to the AG Chambers, the investigation into the Mohameds by US authorities is understood to have originated in the mid-2010s, with intelligence and law-enforcement cooperation between Guyana and the United States dating back to 2016–2017. According to the indictment, the alleged fraudulent scheme operated “from in or about 2017” through June 2024. In fact, in June 2024, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned the Mohameds and several of their companies, including Mohamed’s Enterprise, citing allegations of tax evasion, trade-based money laundering, and gold smuggling. The AG Chambers said that the Guyana Government was first informed of the ongoing US investigation through official diplomatic channels following the June 2024 sanctions. Reports indicate that US agencies involved in the investigation included the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In March 2025, the Government of Guyana received a comprehensive dossier of evidence from US authorities pursuant to mutual legal assistance arrangements. That dossier, it was noted, included documentation relating to gold export irregularities, falsified customs declarations, and undeclared shipments seized in Miami. Meanwhile, Azruddin Mohamed is presently before the local courts in relation to the importation of a Lamborghini motor for which he evaded more than $380 million in taxes in violation of Section 217 of the Customs Act. He has also been charged with fraudulent declaration under the same act after falsifying the invoice to state a value of just US$75,300 in order to understate import taxes. That matter is still pending in the courts.

Documents show Azruddin Mohamed bought Lamborghini for US$695,000- court records – Demerara Waves Online News- Guyana

demerarawaves.com, May 15, 2025

Records obtained from the United States (US) government show that embattled city businessman, Azruddin Mohamed probably bought a Lamborghini car from an American company for US$695,000 instead of his declared value of US$75,300. Minister of Home Affairs, Robeson Benn dispatched the records from the US Department of Justice to the Commissioner-General of the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) showing that the Texas-based International Speed Consulting Inc issued an invoice for the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ Roadster 2020 (with Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) ZHWUN6ZD1LLAO9394) on October 7, 2020 for US$695,000. A Guyana customs form dated 7th December 2020 concerning the same vehicle with the identical VIN states a value of US$75,300. The GRA, in its latest submissions, also requested and acquired official records from the Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry (GBTI) showing that Mr Mohamed transferred a total of US$622,000 from October 5 to 7, 2020 in tranches of US$350,000 on October 5; US$250,000 on October 6 and US$22,000 on October 7 to International Speed Consulting Inc at 3608 Bristlecone Court Rockwall, Texas. The stated purposes of those transfers were for racing services and parts, race support fee and travel expenses and marketing and advertising. The GRA has specifically asked GBTI on April 23, 2025 for wire transfer records to that company between October 1 and December 31, 2020. ... The documents are in support of another affidavit by GRA Deputy Commissioner for Law Enforcement and Investigation, Rajandra Singh who said the documents confirm that Mr Mohamed “had paid a significantly greater sum” for the Lamborghini which bears licence registration number PZZ 4000. Mr Singh said the records were obtained from the US under the the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty. The GRA also accused Mr Mohamed of producing fictitious and false information to show that the car was purchased at a lower price than what was actually paid. “The applicant further supported his illegal actions by producing to this court documentation from International Speed Consulting Inc to deliberately understate the value of the said vehicle,” the GRA official said. The GRA effectively asked the High Court to find that Mr Mohamed is guilty of perjury for falsely declaring the value which was paid for the said vehicle and submitted a valuation which was false, and entering into a criminal and illegal scheme with International Speed Consulting Inc. to deceive and defraud the GRA as to the true price paid for the said vehicle.

Source

A corruption thesis with a family blind spot in Guyana Times, November 5, 2026