United States sanctioned businessman, Azruddin Mohamed, was placed on $500,000 bail for tax evasion and fraudulent declaration charges.
Mohamed appeared before acting Chief Magistrate Faith Mcgustty this morning where he pleaded not guilty to the charges of Fraudulent Declaration to the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) and Fraudulent Evasion of Taxes regarding his Lamborghini.
The defence lawyers requested that Mohamed be released on his own recognisance, stating that he is not a flight risk.
In response, the prosecutor for GRA, Sanjeev Datadin, requested that bail be set especially given the sums involved in the matter that runs into millions of dollars and had no objections to same being granted.
In determining bail, the magistrate indicated that while she does not believe the defendant is a flight risk, persons of lesser means have been placed on cash bail. Consequently, bail was set at $250,000 for each of the two charges.
The matter will be called again on June 26 at 09:00h.
It was reported that earlier this month, the United States Department of Justice, under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), provided an original invoice for the Lamborghini Aventador, which was billed to Azruddin Mohamed himself, to the tune of US$695,000.
However, in his previous declarations to the court, Mohamed claimed to have spent US$76,000 on the luxury car, a difference of some US$619,000.
In April, GRA officials, backed by police attempted to seize several luxury vehicles — including a Lamborghini Roadster, Ferrari, Rolls Royce, and Land Cruisers — from the the Mohamed’s residence in Houston, Greater Georgetown. The operation was aborted after a hostile crowd, reportedly paid by Mohamed, blocked access to the premises.
GRA has said that the vehicles were imported under the re-migrant scheme, but failed to meet key requirements, including residency status and proper declaration of value. The total tax liability in the matter is estimated at nearly $900 million.
Among the outstanding amounts are: $479.7 million for a 2020 Ferrari registered to Hana Mohamed; $371.7 million for the Lamborghini tied to Azruddin Mohamed; $320 million for a 2023 Rolls Royce registered to Bibi Mohamed and additional millions linked to a Range Rover and Toyota Land Cruisers under various family names.
In 2024, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) had announced that it sanctioned Nazar Mohamed and his son, Azruddin Mohamed, several of their companies, and a Guyanese Government official, Mae Thomas, for their roles in alleged public corruption in Guyana.
According to a statement from OFAC, this is related to the evasion of taxes on gold exports, noting that between 2019 and 2023, Mohamed’s Enterprise omitted more than 10 thousand kilograms (kg) of gold from import and export declarations and avoided paying more than US$50 million in duty taxes to the Government of Guyana.
Discover more from INews Guyana
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
